Hey there! Joined up here mostly so I could ask these questions, since the errata and/or the books themselves don't seem to offer explanation. Some of my questions pertain to the Shield of Humanity, whose errata isn't out yet, so that might be explained later.

First off: Bi-pods and tri-pods (core rulebook, pg. 190) for basic weapons...... is there any point for them at all? For heavy weapons, it allows for bracing, but for basic, it seems to do nothing other than limit fire radius. Mechanics seem to say they're worthless (aforementioned firing radius restriction), though the fluff says 'improves accuracy'.

Edit: Sorry about that. Looked and found some discussion in the forums.... seems to be a bit of fluff and also potential house-ruling, though it's potential since FFG hasn't said anything yet, as far as I know.

Second: Lasgun Volley (Hammer of the Emperor talent, pg. 100).

Problem I have is in the wording:

For each Comrade who is part of any Ranged Volley Order
this character issues, this character deals +1 additional Damage
(to a maximum of +3 Damage)

But the way the rules on multiple companions seems to read, I can only tell one of my companions to have a Ranged Volley.

Words from the book:

A Player Character who has multiple Comrades can issue Orders to each one, but can only give the Ranged Volley Order
and Close Quarters Order (see page 270–271 of the Only War Core Rulebook) to one Comrade each Turn.

What am I missing?

Third, many of the Advanced Specalities in the Shield seem to have companion orders (by the way they're worded) as something the actual character does.... and in many cases, takes a full round to do and can only trigger before that character's next action. Shall I assume misprint?

Might be more issues, but I'll stop there for right now.

Going to give it a shot and try and see what I can answer here.

First off: Bi-pods and tri-pods (core rulebook, pg. 190) for basic weapons...... is there any point for them at all? For heavy weapons, it allows for bracing, but for basic, it seems to do nothing other than limit fire radius. Mechanics seem to say they're worthless (aforementioned firing radius restriction), though the fluff says 'improves accuracy'.

Looking a the Brace Heavy weapon action on page 243 it says the while bracing the weapon you can traverse it freely up to 45 degrees without having to take a half action again to brace, the best over all advantage for bi-pods or tri-pods seem to be they allow a 90 to 180 degree traverse. In combat not having to take another half action to re-brace your weapon as the next target is out of your fire arc is helpful.

Second: Lasgun Volley (Hammer of the Emperor talent, pg. 100).

Problem I have is in the wording:

For each Comrade who is part of any Ranged Volley Order
this character issues, this character deals +1 additional Damage
(to a maximum of +3 Damage)

But the way the rules on multiple companions seems to read, I can only tell one of my companions to have a Ranged Volley.

Words from the book:

A Player Character who has multiple Comrades can issue Orders to each one, but can only give the Ranged Volley Order
and Close Quarters Order (see page 270–271 of the Only War Core Rulebook) to one Comrade each Turn.

What am I missing?

What they seem to be going with this one is that you can only give one Range Volley Order to one Comrade each turn so that for example a Commander (advanced class page 63 HotE) would not get a +20% to ballistic skill if he had 4 Comrades, he would only get the base 5 as per the order rules. But that very same Commander with the Lasgun Volley talent would get a +3 Damage as he does have 4 comrades with him at the time (Max damage talent can cause is +3).

It sounds like they want to let people with multiple comrades get a small damage bonus to ranged attacks but not a bonus to their percentage chance to hit, this is the way it looks to me at least.

Third, many of the Advanced Specalities in the Shield seem to have companion orders (by the way they're worded) as something the actual character does.... and in many cases, takes a full round to do and can only trigger before that character's next action. Shall I assume misprint?

I have see some of the talents for Tech-Priest that do seem to have them taking over their servitor companion and firing their weapons using the Tech-Priest skills, some of these orders in conjunction with the new types of servitors just seem to be a way to give Tech-Priest a greater range of weapons without them having to hold them all. The trick with these is that if they have the Attack Sub-Type action listed on the order it is the only attack the player character can do that round as each player only gets one attack sub-type action each turn.

If you have some more specific example orders you want to know about post them up.

I hope this helps.

Thank you very much.

For the first question, sorry should have made it more concise. I was mostly just asking about basic weapons. What's the point of those for basic weapons? Fluff says accuracy. Other threads say it's a legacy thing from other books they failed to include. Either way, it doesn't matter too much for me. Heavy weapons though, I knew that part. Those two are very good for heavy weapons.

Second question, we just house-ruled something similar. I mean, not like I want to get the extra's to hit (Ratling Sniper, I don't need any of that.), just the damage as I add more companions to the damage pile. But yeah, that helps.

Third question... yeah, sorry, wasn't specific since there are quite a few things. For example, the Gun Lugger. Guiding fire says it's a Full Round action. But the words are, your companion puts down a line of bullets. Until the end of the turn, the Gun Lugger doubles his degrees of success on any BS skill test he makes to hit the target the companion marked. The way it is mechanically now, the companion does nothing with his turn and the Gun Lugger can't attack during his turn, spending it setting this up, wasting the whole thing.

There are a few more examples of abilities only lasting a turn, being the character action and not a companion action, and having it fluffed as your companion does something to give you a bonus.

Third question... yeah, sorry, wasn't specific since there are quite a few things. For example, the Gun Lugger. Guiding fire says it's a Full Round action. But the words are, your companion puts down a line of bullets. Until the end of the turn, the Gun Lugger doubles his degrees of success on any BS skill test he makes to hit the target the companion marked. The way it is mechanically now, the companion does nothing with his turn and the Gun Lugger can't attack during his turn, spending it setting this up, wasting the whole thing.

For Comrade Orders like Guiding Fire for Gun Lugger and other like it the Comrade is the one taking the full action listed in the comrade order. For example for Guiding Fire the Comrade has to to a full action to help the character, so no half move or anything like that. The comrade spends his full action laying down the guiding fire that gives the player character the bonus when he makes his same attack that round.

I know that's the spirit (and how almost all of these will be house ruled/Errata'd). But since it doesn't say: Order(Full Round), it's technically something that the main character does.

I was just looking for some confirmation that they were worded terribly and need to be changed to Order(Full Round), which means the companion is spending the action rather than Full Round, which is the PC doing the action. Thank you very much for confirming the terribly worded blocks.