The PCs are boarding an enemy ship, and I want to give them some good encounters.

I'm hoping to make it a 3-encounter scene:

1. Initial boarding action
2. ????
3. Storming the bridge

I've got good ideas for 1 and 3, but I'm blanking on 2. What is a good, exciting encounter that can happen after they've boarded the ship, but before they get to the bridge?

A few ideas I've had:

1. Some kind of Zero-G environment, like a greenhouse
2. A cramped hallway fight, with shotguns and flamers

The PCs are very powerful (power armor, bolters, power swords) and can cut through rank after rank of crappy Imperial Navy ratings like butter. I'd like to have an interesting encounter that challenges them, or at the least, provides them some entertainment. Just finding a handful of soldiers in a hallway and then mercilessly slaughtering them won't really do anything other than waste time.

Note: Roleplay encounters would be especially cool, like something with the ecclesiarchy or some kind of adeptus administratum. The players are fearless when it comes to weapons, but they get pretty nervous when a pencil-pusher starts accusing them of not filling out the right forms...

Note: Roleplay encounters would be especially cool, like something with the ecclesiarchy or some kind of adeptus administratum. The players are fearless when it comes to weapons, but they get pretty nervous when a pencil-pusher starts accusing them of not filling out the right forms...

....which means your characters will be pretty much "save" because the midst of a boarding action are not the moment for religious discussion or administrativ issues

Can you tell a little more about the enemy and the ship they are boarding?

A pirate? Some traitor to mankind that is in alliance with xenos? A vessel where chaos is openly worshipped? A ship commanded by hereteks? The nature of the enemy should alwasy be taken into account when designing encounters.

What Gregorius said. What are they boarding?

Anyway, a few generic encounters

1. Zero-G Fights are a must - hopefully including the hilarious effects of Grenades scattering there

2. Some People having hostages, either potentially important to the PCs in a political/material way or in an emotional way

3. Closing Bulkheads. More of a Filler, but can be combined with lots of traps.

4. Plasma-Leaks. Cause everybody hates the blue stuff spilling out of those tubes.

5. Crossing a body of water (freshwater tanks?) while in Power Armor and being under fire by whatever or ambushed by can opener underwater-mutants, ever tried being quick underwater with PA?

6. Differently-colored keycards - a classic.

7. Battle on a gun-deck - unloading shells while dodging house-sized shells on cargo-cranes while taking care not to blow one up.

In Essence, think about what is on a ship and what could happen there

I too need more info to be helpful, but it's always fun to have a battle amidst plasma batteries. Got to fight your way through before the room locks down whilst the guns vent heat, which makes the room 'unpleasant' to say the least.

Anyhow: the following won´t last long, but might make for a nice episode

Generally: Keep in mind that the defending party has the ship on its side. It know the layout, their are control rooms that will -notice- when bulk heads have been breached and will thereby by able to direct the different groups of fighters towards their targets. The attacker only has a rough layout, sees what their soldiers see and has one BIG problem.

Do I clear and secure EACH AND EVERY LOCKED ROOM behind me (which takes an awfull lot of times and gives the defend more time to coordinate their efforts) or do I just "push ahead" with the risk of ending up with pockets of enemy fighters getting into the back of my "spear head groups", cutting them off?

[Combat Encounter] The grenade corridor
The characters decided (or were forced to) make their way through a series of smaller side corridor (perhaps two meters wide), cutting closed bulkheads and always having an eye onto those doors left and right. As they work their way towards a crossway they see metal doors suddenly swinging close just before the crossway, closing the corridor up about two thirds of its height...

...or so they might believe at first if they do not pass an Awareness(+20) test. These are two armsmen carrying void shields: towering and heavy devices made of heavy plating (AP:8) and meant to give an impromptu barricade during a boarding action. If the characters did not pass the test, role for surprise as a third armsman starts to jump up shortly (so that his head is visible for a short moment; -30 on all BS test to hit him) as he gauges the distance to the characters. What follows is an attack with frag grenades (2d10; tearing) which the third armsman loobs over the two tightly pressed shields (protecting him and his mates from the explosion as long as the characters aren´t close enough). Left and right in the arms of the junctions are two further armsmen waiting. They have chain axes at the ready which they will start up after the first grenades went off (counting on the deafening noise of the explosion in the corridor to hide the tell-tale roar of the axes; Awareness(-30) to notice them anyway.

The corridor makes sure that the grenades cannot miss to much. Any “scatter” result other then 4,5,6,7 and 9 is technically “half” in the distance that it missed its mark (see DHcr p. 196). If the GM´s see it appropriate, he can give the armsmen some krak grenades, too. Take into account that the grenades are thrown “blindly” (-10), so!

The characters can either try to shoot the armsmen holding the void shield (AP:8 in addition to his armour). Closing the distance is the better option as well as breaking through the shield wall (opposed test of Strength. the armsmen get +10 for their stance. If the characters can CHARGE in servo armour is up to the GM). Once the armsmen feel that the attackers press against the shields, they will “swing back” at their turn and step out of the way...at which point the grenade thrower will have backed away and changed to a high-powered, four shot hand cannon (1d10+3; DS:3) and having his chainaxe wielding comrades going for the characters first.

The “let ém in” trick will have the characters stunned for a round unless they

- passed an ordinary(+10) for either Intelligence or Scholastic Lore (Tactica Imperialis)
- passed a challenging(+0) Dexterity test
- have the “Lighting Reflexes” Talent
- the players expected it before (GM´s fiat, in that case their should be a penalty to their Strength test, so!)

Last but not least, I would give the “axe guys” Strength: 40 and “Crushing Blow” (total of 1d10+10//AP:2 damage, tearing)

Servitor-targeted heavy weapon emplacements hidden in panels in the walls/ceiling, guarding key locations, that spring into place when unauthorized personnel approach.

Thanks for all the replies! I'll give some more info, but please realize that my W40k knowledge is thin, and especially so when it comes to space/navy/ships. I still have a hard time understanding who owns the ships, how big they are, how fast they move, etc, etc. Luckily, my players are also W40k newbs, so they don't notice when I get things wrong.

They're basically boarding a ship controlled by another acolyte. I'm assuming it's a "small" ship, whatever that means. Onboard will be a fair number of soldiers, I'm sort of assuming Imperial navy. It's a case of Inquisitor fighting Inquisitor, with good, loyal Imperium soldiers caught in the middle.

You can also assume that I'm pretty bad at running NPCs while the PCs are pretty optimized and deadly. They're big fans of Long Las with accuracy, scoring big criticals while being a safe distance away. Close-quarters in a ship will negate that, but they'll still manage to chew through normal soldiers at an extreme rate while shrugging off hits from anything that doesn't have strong penetration. Also, they have a psyker who excels at fear effects and other debilitating attacks. He can clear rooms on his own without firing a shot...

Of what I've read so far, I like the servitor-controlled heavy weapons ideas, plus grenade spamming in close quarters. Perhaps Zero-G grenade spamming...

Also, I like the void shield idea, but I'm always scared to add in items like that. My players are pretty smart and they'll say, "So...how much does this +8 armor thingy actually weigh? I'm going to start carrying it and using it..." Then they're even tougher to challenge than they already are now...

Also, I like the void shield idea, but I'm always scared to add in items like that. My players are pretty smart and they'll say, "So...how much does this +8 armor thingy actually weigh? I'm going to start carrying it and using it..." Then they're even tougher to challenge than they already are now...

The smallest vehicle in the Imperium of Man that can be equipped with a Void Shield is a Warhound Titan-- a 15 meter tall war machine. No Acolyte is going to be carrying a Void Shield around.

A small warp ship would be a raider. They have crews of roughly 22'000, whereas a small non-warp ship would be alot smaller. More in the lines of anywhere between 10 and 1000 crew. The first is accurate, the non-warp ship is an estimate based on what I know about landing craft/shuttles etc.

Also, I like the void shield idea, but I'm always scared to add in items like that. My players are pretty smart and they'll say, "So...how much does this +8 armor thingy actually weigh? I'm going to start carrying it and using it..." Then they're even tougher to challenge than they already are now...

The smallest vehicle in the Imperium of Man that can be equipped with a Void Shield is a Warhound Titan-- a 15 meter tall war machine. No Acolyte is going to be carrying a Void Shield around.

Oh sorry, my bad! This are of course not "Void Shields" but "Naval Shields". ..they are not the generator-things ColArcana is refering to but an item introduced in the InquisitorsHandbook (p.162) and are pretty much as I summed up in my "Encounter". The weight is by 9kg. So, after reading they are not granting "+8 AP" (that was the frigging Aribtrator-Shield rules I was scanning for another topic) but "AP:8".

@Mica

I see the point there. In that case, there aren´t armsmen carryingn them but servitors who have them attached to a cybernetic limb. This is even better since it gives you the excuse of lending them more strenght (S:50 is not uncommon for a servitor) and adding a chainsword "limb" to each of them as well (1d10+7 // AP: Tearing)

A small warp ship would be a raider. They have crews of roughly 22'000, whereas a small non-warp ship would be alot smaller. More in the lines of anywhere between 10 and 1000 crew. The first is accurate, the non-warp ship is an estimate based on what I know about landing craft/shuttles etc.

The currently established "smallest warp-cabable craft" is the "Viper Scout Sloop". It was introduced in the DH adventure "Church of the Damned" (p.57)

Dimensions: approx. .95 km long, .25 km a beam at fins

Mass: 4.9 megatonnes approx.

Accel: 6 gravities max acceleration

Crew Complement: 7,500 crew (it was mentioned to run with 6,000. I would not go below 5.000 ).

"Viper-class vessels are traditionally used by Battlefl eet Calixis as high-speed scouts, with good

communications and few weapons. This design made it appealing to the Inquisition, who uses it as a reliable and secure transport. "

You see, the boarding is not a task undertaken lightly. Most of the crew, however, are "Ratings". These people live on the ship, they die on the ship and can be seen more like the populace of a medivial city under attack: some might fight, but most will just get into their quarters and pray that they are not slaughtered. Do to his "low-tech-/high-tech" mix so common in 40Kk you have a lot of MANUAL work we would handle with machines knowadays (!). The people doing that work are ofter press-ganged or the sons and daughters of those who were press-ganged before them. They do not need to be, but it helps the GM.

Don´t panic! The borders do not need to kill-sweep the whole ship. You are already doing it right: crash in as close to the vital point as possible, fight your way through, take control of the vital point. Just be aware of the fact that this is an army scale figt and the characters are only one among literally a dozens and dozens of groups raging from 10 to 50 who try to fulfill their task.

You should emphasize how desperate such a fight is. The borders will be outnumbered and overwhelmed if the key structures (guns, engine rooms, command bridge, secondary control room, etc). aren´t taken out. Because only then will "their ship" be able to pump more and more troops into this ship. At least, this is how I envision it. RogueTrader players might be able to tell more about it

Well, in game-terms, boarding is quite simple, but narrative, yeah, that's a whole other beast.

All in all I think you've summed up the situation quite nicely gregorius and considering the Boarding-Action itself is taking place between two imperial factions, I think it's likely at one point the obvious losers without captain will surrender. Essentially, the whole battle will, at least for the players, boil down to how well they coordinate with their allies in order to get those vital structures mentioned.

Now, here is probably where it get's interesting, as you can give the players as much time to prepare a plan as you want, depending on their authority. Will they focus their troops in one attack on the bridge being taken totally aghast when they realize the ship has a secondary bridge where the captain actually is? Who'll deal with those overly-zealous guys hiding near the Warp Drive threatening to blow it up?

In fact, having them spend hours and hours developing a plan might be an interesting Idea

In fact, having them spend hours and hours developing a plan might be an interesting Idea

I strongly adivse against it since both the players and you (Mica, the GM) are not too familiar with 40K space ship boarding. Even if you LIKe spending hours of just planing.

In addition, even if you would be, it would mean you as the GM would need to spend a lot of effort to have the whole ship boarding as a "Sand box" ready for the the characters to do your thing (preparing a lot of locations that will never be of use in the end due to the player chosing "the other of the 5 offered options") OR you would need to be very good at improvising

Stick to your plan, give the characters "the most dangerous of jobs: conquering the bridge" and have them charge in. After all, since all of them are in servo armour and haver might weapons, they most likly ARE the most "elite" of all combat groups at hand (if perhaps not the most seasoned) and thereby the strategically choice for acting as "king pin killer".

[Additional Encounter: the Psyker-Projection]

Since you have an Inquisitor´s acolytes as the “sponsor” of the enemy, you could justify installing a “Vat Psyker” Onboard the Ship (perhaps always located were the “Head Acolyte” of the enemy is. “Vat Psykers” were an idea of the author Dan Abnett, but mentioned in the fluff of the “Creatures Anathema” sourcebook as well. Basically, it is a Psyker “encased” (sometimes permanently) into a large tank filled with liquid and attached to systems that are meant to strengthen his Psychic powers with obscure drugs while keeping their vital functions in balance at the same time. And I somehow always imagined them haven “kill rigs” as well that will inject a quick and deadly poison if it seems that the Psyker gets possessed or perhaps electrocutes him on the spot. Needles to say, Vat Psyker life a miserable existence that might be very short due to the drug use. They are more tools then people. Some Vat tanks are mobile, all of them are under the control of a handler through the tank (I guess: a specialised Tech-Adept or something akin to it in skill. Perhaps your “enemy acolyt).

In this case, I would use the Vat Psyker as a weapon with a high “cool down”. The systems of the vat tank fire it up till the Psyker has no Problem of using the Telepathy Powers of

Projections; Inspire; Terrify

It then “blinks” about the ship, directed by the acolyte in the control room to where ever a battle needs assistance. But after about 5 to 10 minutes, the Psykers body and mind needs about twice or thrice the time to recover unless a collapse or heart failure might happen.

Thereby, you can annoy your characters with it during every scene you wish. Please take not that he is not “really there”. Telepathic powers should work “back and forth” (I guess!), but other physical attacks will not. He could strengthen the moral of troops the second time (not the first encounter!) your player psyker uses his power. And he can dish out his own medicine to them.

Do not overuseit, so! But twice should be fine. And your characters will feel GOOD when they finally get their hands on him physically. I would "send him over" only after the characters successfully waded through something or after the Psyker used its powers. This will be rapported back to the command room...with a matching response.

A small warp ship would be a raider. They have crews of roughly 22'000, whereas a small non-warp ship would be alot smaller. More in the lines of anywhere between 10 and 1000 crew. The first is accurate, the non-warp ship is an estimate based on what I know about landing craft/shuttles etc.

The currently established "smallest warp-cabable craft" is the "Viper Scout Sloop". It was introduced in the DH adventure "Church of the Damned" (p.57)

Dimensions: approx. .95 km long, .25 km a beam at fins

Mass: 4.9 megatonnes approx.

Accel: 6 gravities max acceleration

Crew Complement: 7,500 crew (it was mentioned to run with 6,000. I would not go below 5.000 ).

"Viper-class vessels are traditionally used by Battlefl eet Calixis as high-speed scouts, with good

communications and few weapons. This design made it appealing to the Inquisition, who uses it as a reliable and secure transport. "

I did not know that. Thanks for the information, as I was going with Rogue Trader, and ignoring transports as I assume it's a warship. Again, thanks for the info.

A thing on the side: Bulk-head cutting
The Inquisitors Handbook mentions a tool for just that kind of acting: the bulkhead cutter (doah!)

Basically; a torso mounted "harness" covering an arm (likely, the "left") where a small but hefty chaincutter is implemented, running along that arm. The power for this might be on the back, I guess. 6kg; 1d10+3; AP; Tearing; Unwieldy.

I mention them because your character WANT one of them to cut through the bulkheads (therey, at least one of them will have the left arm "occupied"). No, they DON´T want to use their power weapons for it. Explain to them that this would wear them out over the course of the boarding.

Make sure you mention alot of cutting through bulkheads. Another option is "metal gel" (a red or orange gel that is inactive untill given a "jolt" from an electrive current, the cutting through like a melta weapon would). A tube (like teeth cleaning paste) is enough for a bulkhead. But as the characters are in full servo armour, they might like the fine manipulation ability needed for such a thing.

A word on the weapons and these Servoarmours of your characters:
You really screwed yourself with this.

Basic weapon with good damage (1d10+4; max Dmg: 14)) is no real threat to them (8 points of Armour plus 3 to 5 points of TB << they “soak” 11 to 13 points of damage).

Your need “attacks” with a “net damage bonus” (the +4 is a “net damage bonus”) and a Penetration of at least 6 (preferable: 8). Otherwise, you players will simply laugh about them as they “pling” of their armour and TB. But such weapons or not given to the “rank and file. Well, mostly.

6 means there is a 40% chance for damage (based on a TB:4 player character)
8 means there will be damage as long as the d10 is higher then the TB of the target PC.

Possible candidates:

Handcannons (1d10+4; Pen:2) which are “Average” and should not be to uncommon in weapon lockers of troops preparing for close combat against armoured foes.

Autoguns with manstopper rounds (1d10+3; Pen:3) I advise NOT to use those in the first encounter, so. This ammo is costly, not every armsman with an autogun will even have this ammo. And for some reason, the “fluff” always mentions “Naval Shotguns” as standard weapon for boarding actions. Might have something to do with “putting holes into an environment where is something NEEDED TO FUNCTION behind every wall. By this logic, every weapon with a PEN is a bad idea in ship combat. Twice true for Bolters and such. Hmm...well...that being said, let´s just go on, shall we?

Naval Shotguns (1d10+4) are useless against servo..unless you rule they are armed with manstopper rounds (AP:3), see above. Use stats for Assault shotguns otherwise

Heavy Bolter (2d10; Pen:5; Tearing) are an excellent choice. But you should only have them installed in key locations or have them attached to Weapon Servitor who accompanies a group of armsmen (see DHcr for Weapon Servitors)

Flamers (1d10+4; Pen:3) could do the trick as well..you do not even need to role to hit. But then again, most commanders will only use them sparsely. There is this chance of setting your own ship on fire. In space, were air is precious, a fire in a cable duct is something you do not want to have. If the flamers are broke out, the captain gets desperate for sure!

Lasguns with a hot-shot-pack (1d10+4; Pen:4; Tearing) do the trick, but it is unlikely that every armsman has one... and those who will might only have 1 or 3. of those packs. And these are one shot. Fortunately, a good “weapon drill” justifies the “Rapid Reload” Talent.

I wrote up a small number of “combat NPC” an add some more weapons I know from IH or would introduce myself. Since this is about three pages, I turned it into a PDF an provide it for download via my dropbox account.

I might write further combat encounters if I find the time. When is your next session? How much time is left?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ycywwz25xff2tmq/SimpleCombatNPC_Boarding.pdf

You should perhaps think about a "route" the characters are most likely to take..not like a full plan with floors and all but more like three to five "sections"or "decks" the characters need to cross before they reach the bridge.

If you have that "mind frame" ready, you can start to think about "okay...what battlefields are possible there?" and write down some "vignettes". Most importantly, have some lines of narrative ready (bullet points or fully written) when you switch form "scene to scene".

I have another "battle scene" ready, one you could fill in shortly before the characters come to the bridge (or "two away from that"). Unfortunately, I was not able to turn it into PDF (hope you like Microsoft Word) and haven´t provided stats for Inquisition Stromtroopers yet

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a6jyaege55jqkij/MDJ-VII-F7-038.doc

[inquisition Guardtrooper]

BS:45--WS:45—S:40:--T:40—AG:35—INT:30—PER:35—WP:35—FEl:25
Move:::: 4 / 8 / 12 / 24++++Wounds:::16

Relevant Skills: +10
Talents: Disarm, Takedown, Fearless; Resistance (Psychic Powers)
Armour: Stromtrooper Carapace (AP:6 in all location); /w Respirator, Vox & Photolenses (+20 against blinding/shock attacks)

Weapons: Backpack-fed HighPower Lasrifles (1d10+4++S/3/-++Pen:3) w/Bayonet ; Shock Grenades; CombatKnife

My old GM used to insist that we took nothing onto a void ship, that could puncture the plating of the ship, for fear of a breach. I have carried this on into my own campaign, where the only weapons available in a ship's weapons lockers, are naval shotguns, and pistols (I know.. boring) Alternately you could supply dumdum rounds, and alot of flash bangs.

All of the talk, of grenades, and heavy bolters IMO would surely cause a breach of the hull and cause explosive decompression, killing pretty much everyone in that compartment. As for combating your heavily armoured Acolytes, I would go with Gregorius' Psyker option, a well timed weapon jinx could paralyze the acolytes, building tension as the ratings gather, and begin sawing into their armour, only for the spell to break just before it is too late, which leaves your acolytes quite literally swarmed. the fight would be very brutal, lots of hand to hand combat with some improvised cutting weapons, and power tools.

Just thought I'd throw my two cents in

My old GM used to insist that we took nothing onto a void ship, that could puncture the plating of the ship, for fear of a breach.

I wanted to work a slight chance of hull breaches into a mission I ran on a space station a while back. The normal rules for penetrating walls wouldn't allow much chance of that happening, so I 'house ruled' that missed shots while adjacent to the outer hull have a 1% chance per point of AP of triggering a hull breach.

About the "oh-it-could-pierce-the-hull" fear:
I really don´t see reason why there even should be fear of hull penetration.

Ruleswise: We are talking about something like AP:32 here AT THE LEAST (see DHcr p.199; rules for cover and damaging cover); realistically, the hull should have oh so much more then this! Just because....

Fluff wise: ...a hull that could be penetrated by hand weapons would not have the most flimsy of a chance against ship-to-ship weaponary. Thereby, a naval battle would be over after one salvo. An afffair between literal glas cannons, so to speak.

I do understand a fear for penetrating interior walls or platings that might cover this or that system that is important for reason X. But even then, we are talking about said plating and walls having an AP between 16 and 32 (again; based on the material list in DHcr p.199).

Things like "Bolter and up" will penetrate the lower end of that scale, but even a heavy bolter will not blast through a Armaplas wall. Personally, I would assume that everything that is important to anything but the immediate area (like "that corridor / this hall") will be behind something with an AP.20. This ratio would mean that blasting away with anything up to a Heavy Bolter would only lead to "local colletaral damage" and make it acceptable.

Of course, "Grav Plating" might fit into the lower end of things (AP:16) which gives an excuse to have all sorts of nice effects after a missed volley of Bolter fire (with AP:4, 1d10+5 TEARING, they have a fine chance of punching through).

The planned route of the characters leads them through section VII-A12. During pre-assault briefing this inward section of the ship was seen as “most likely to contain quarters for ratings or voidsmen. That means a lot of smaller rooms, to many to clear or secure each and every of them. Move with caution, but with speed. Resistance should be expected, but minor. Do NOT get bogged down there!”

However, this is not the first time that this ship has seen an attempt at boarding and the section has seen heavy fighting, about two generations ago. So heavy that the collateral damage to local systems was so heavy that the section was given up and sealed in the aftermath, creating a “Black Hold”, an unused and unpowered part of the ship likely to be found on most of the ancient warpvessels of mankind.

The characters will notice the difference only after they breached the bulkhead leading in. There will be utter darkness instead of dimmed alert lights, the air while stale and thick due to the lack of ventilation and all their light sources reveal has the derelict look of old battle damages and the neglect of decades. And as the sight of random debris floating in the light breaking in through the open bulkhead will tell them, there is not a single powered gravity plating in that section.

While the acolytes might fear some hullghast charging them or something, in fact that section is much to small and “inward”, the time much to short to have it developed into its own eco system with marauding mutants and the like. It does feature some problems for the characters, so.

Void mold: Since the “outside” is warmer then the non-heated interior, the outer walls “sweat”. As there is no running ventilation, the humidity builds up. Over the years, a form of mold common on most void ships has formed. Void mold looks like clusters of grey, somewhat “slimy” material. It looks much like carpet of small “bumps” with “pseudopodi”. The bumps are rather flat and the largest are the size of a finger tip, the smallest barely seen. They stick to surfaces and float through the air if disturbed, then gluing to the nearest surface if not squished before. As the characters move through, describe to them how the stuff clings to them. It is harmless, but dirty. Before they are through, their visors get a smeary film onto them that would need sorrow cleaning. Simply wiping them will not remove the smears (-5 BS and all sight based test). And if the characters do not clean their mechanical weapons (Bolter, SP) afterwards, their reliability drops by two steps (by one if they undergo a quick, 5 minute “field clearing”. The weapons need serious cleaning now).

Zero-G: Ask the characters for three difficult (-10) tests for Acrobatics or Agility (+10 if the characters are voidborn). A character can “assist” another, increasing his own difficulty by one step while decreasing that of his comrade. If anyone of them fails in more then one of the tests, they lose time as they try to cross the corridors and halls. Feel free to hamper up the number of enemies in their next combat encounter since the defenders used the time to amass more force. Or, throw at them some armsmen following them from behind.

About the "oh-it-could-pierce-the-hull" fear:

I really don´t see reason why there even should be fear of hull penetration.

Ruleswise: We are talking about something like AP:32 here AT THE LEAST (see DHcr p.199; rules for cover and damaging cover); realistically, the hull should have oh so much more then this! Just because....

Fluff wise: ...a hull that could be penetrated by hand weapons would not have the most flimsy of a chance against ship-to-ship weaponary. Thereby, a naval battle would be over after one salvo. An afffair between literal glas cannons, so to speak.

That's completely logical, but the fact remains that it has been a consistent part of 40K lore that Naval Armsmen use shotguns as their primary weapons because of fear that more powerful weapons might cause a hull breach. I agree that it's silly, but it's 'canon'...

That's completely logical, but the fact remains that it has been a consistent part of 40K lore that Naval Armsmen use shotguns as their primary weapons because of fear that more powerful weapons might cause a hull breach. I agree that it's silly, but it's 'canon'...

Yes I know *sighs*....the best thing? This MOST SILLY OF LOGIC is even written down in IH p.160 in the opening paragraph to the ranged weapons section "...most, however, can easily puncture hull plating..." . While that MIGHT be true for a shuttle or something, I really wonder what the BlackIndustry Writer who has put this down was thinking...or lacking in information about the ships in 40k.

And here we go... this "canon" roots in an assumption ("the hand weapons can pierce the hull of a voidship") that is contradicted by "canon" ("void ship have hulls that are stronge enough that torpedos, Lances batteries and macro-cannon shells are the tools of war needed in ship battle") AND by "DH/RT RAW" (see the AP vs. Penetration example above).

*sighs again* I see why people stick to it, but based on the dilemma given above, I started handling it the way I explained.

@Mica

Choose which way to go...but if you stick to Shotguns alone you will have a hard time challenging your Servo-Armour-Acolytes