Yo yo!

I'm an experienced Game Master and I am currently running a campaign in Only War. So far my players have been in some major combats spread out over 8 sessions.

Not once have they even been close to running out of ammo; they have barely had to reload (Las and Heavy Bolter Weapons).

What is your experience with ammunition in the game? Do you other GMs care to note it?

Right now I am thinking of halving the capacity of all Las and Heavy Bolter clips just to get in a reload here and there in the combat encounters. I feel this is important because I want the players to feel increasingly desperate if they don't land their shots, without making combat run forever.

Currently, a Heavy Bolter can shoot full auto for 10 rounds without having to reload. Most of my encounters don't last much longer than that. Do you experience this, that players can basically shoot straight through a whole encounter without needing to reload?

And yes, I know that the Heavy Bolter is a heavy weapon made for suppression and so on, but still, I get the same results with the players Lasrifles and such.

Thankful for thoughts and experiences

-Max

There is a number of ways i have combat this .

1) during times where your players are in a situation where they are in a defensive position ( say Trench combat) for long periods of time ( weeks , months years) but you do not want to play out or role play, ever single wave that comes about . Just say during the course of a week your characters have used up 10,20, 30% of there ammo. fighting off wave after wave of assaults on your position .

2) have players lose ammo, if they are trying to jump over things, are swim across a lake, and have to do a test, if they fail the test (maybe by one point) have them pass but they lose a charge pack of ammo, or a magazine of bolt pistol ammo. If you are playing in a jungle, just imagine all the things that could snag on ammo packs, if they players are running through the jungle. if there weapons jam, have the ammo get lost as they thumble to try and unjam it.

3) Try get the players to use full auto more, and suppressive fire. For example player one and two, spend there turn firing on full auto to c pin down a hostile position, Player three and four move up into cover. Next turn, players three and four, do supressive fire. So on and so on, after a while they will find their ammo getting low.

4) Have ammo be stolen . Civilians or other guardsmen ( or ratlings) maybe looking to make a few quick thrones, so maybe have a situwation while the players are camping that a civilian , animal, or guardsmen trys to steal there ammo, while they sleep. Could also lead into some interesting plot twists.

5 ) Give them more things to shoot at, for example hordes. If they are in say a servant loyalist city, and they are on guard duty, maybe have a angry mob of 100 civis lightly armed attack the squad, say that for ever successful shot, they kill some one, they would not need to roll for damage maybe, since its a horde of un armored civis.. and you as a GM can deter-man how many are killed by blast weapons such as grenades. This links into point 3 about full auto.

6) put the players in situations where resupply is limited. such as drop troopers behind enemy lines, or supply's are short, as the supply shuttles were shot down, then have the players sent by there officer to get the supply's

Just some suggestions , and things I use, hope it helps.

Commissar.

Try running a Squad without Las weapons, e.g. Autoguns and you will quickly have ammo shortage

that is the main reason the IG uses Las weapons as much as possible, hugh ammo capacity and the ability to reload spent batteries in camps, apc, tanks or whatever other source of energy including a campfire

Let's see, my current group has been rather varied in that department.

The Sharpshooter ('sniper') never seems to run out of ammo, except when he decides to use Hot-Shot charge packs, where as the old sergeant used to simply go full auto-fire and empty several clips in a single fight.

Oh, and if they're using las-weapons, are they taking advantage of the Lasgun Variable Setting rule (p. 175, under the M36 lasgun)? That usually helps both taking down the opposition and burning through ammo fairly quick.

Firstly, thank you all for your answers and thoughts!

Commissar Williams, thanks for many great ideas. I have used most of them and still have problems with the group not getting close to empty;

1) Haven't tried this, it's abstract but I will give this a try

2) This is a great idea and I will put this to use. I have done this but only like once before

3) This doesn't work for my group. They use full-auto (or semi-auto depending on the weapon) frequently but it doesn't bring them even close to empty

4) Done this, was a fun side-quest for the players to figure out

5) I think this is about as useful as 1) but less abstract, might be give the players more of a feeling that they can control things (haha, silly players)

6) Right now this is what I am using the most and the next sessions will feature this even more; My players are dropping down behind enemy lines and I think I might combine this with them losing ammo if they fail certain tests during the jump! Thanks for that idea!

Nightcloak, thanks for your idea but it's hard to change squad in the middle of a campaign. Maybe this will be something I implement next time.

Tenebrae, hehe well, that's what the good old sergeant is for. Sniper too. As for the rule for variable settings, this we haven't used, I will look it up.

What do you guys think of halving the capacity of clips? Is ammo anything you care about in sessions? I made cheat-sheets for all my players with ammo-counters and grenade-counters but right now, as I've said, they hardly need em.

Hmm, when guns & ammo is all I have going for me in a war game, I don't think I want that to run out, especially if I can't get back to base, 40km away, and get more. Ammo should become an issue halfway or later through a long footslogging mission, not most of the time. If the way to make me feel small, helpless, and worried is to halve my ammo, knowing that I can't fight with my bare hands, and that Guard in this game might not assault much better than Guard in TT, Priests, Ogryns, and Sergeants not withstanding, I'd have to hope that I was playing the Psyker, to whom ammo is never a concern; it's not a question of if I can do something, but more of what else might happen when I do. This is only my own opinion, of course. The Imperium sends its men in with practically nothing, and expects them to kill vastly superior forces, in terms of genetics, numbers, or technology; the least they could do is give me enough rounds to do the impossible.

What do you guys think of halving the capacity of clips? Is ammo anything you care about in sessions? I made cheat-sheets for all my players with ammo-counters and grenade-counters but right now, as I've said, they hardly need em.

Do check the rule I mentioned. It effectively halves (or more) ammo capacity of lasweapons.

Seeing as how I play A commissar Character in most games ( I can also do a pretty good tech priest or ogyrn) I always have to reload during a fire fight. I tend to engage from cover at range, then counter charge at the last min. Seems to have worked.

But to be honest I would not worry about ammo to much.

Also I just thought of something

When you characters take damage, you can always say that some of the charge packs have been damaged and would not be safe to use.

Hello venkelos and thanks for your input.

Well, I do want them to feel ****** at times, but not always.

At times I want them to have to flee or find alternative ways to kill their foe- which I supply a-plenty!

I will check it Tenebrae, is it available to all Las-type weapons or just rifles? I think my group uses carbines... Will look it up.

Another great suggestion Commissar Williams, I will definitely use it sometime.

But as you say, it might not matter that much. In the end, I have some great ideas to use now. Thank you all!

I will check it Tenebrae, is it available to all Las-type weapons or just rifles? I think my group uses carbines... Will look it up.

Not all las-type weapons, but certainly laspistols, lascarbines and lasguns (OW, p. 175) as well as longlas and the bullpup lasgun (as explained on OW, p. 176). I don't know why they didn't just put a keyword for it under 'special'.

Talking about ammo: How about a backpack ammo pack for combat shotguns? and for good mesure stick on that chainknife bayonet thingy. (to bad the GM needs to agree on these during regiment creation)

"Right lads,! Lets give it to 'em 200 rounds rapid! FIRE!"

We played with modifed autoguns and let me tell you my chracter stole a lasgun as soon as possible.

Lasguns have big mags for a reason, and that reason is that the muntorum doesn't want to give you spare mags.

Of course you could just go the more obvious route regarding your feeling that your players have too much ammo, have the regimental quartermasters reassign it to another "more deserving" unit.

This is a good one to keep up your sleeve in general. Remind the players that everything they have (including their lives) are on loan from the munitorum.

I would not halve clip size. Certain lasgun types have alternate firing modes that eat up ammunition much quicker. If your squad performs well, perhaps have their standard weapon replaced with these "better" models as a reward for good service. Few players are able to resist the lure of extra damage and penetration

You could have the rest of the company, platoon etc start to use their ammo up forcing the PCs to make the choice of either hording it or helping the other squads out.

Incidentally using up ammo is more a problem over a long period of time. If you want ammo to be an issue you need a good three or four longish combat encounters (possibly over several sessions) with no chance of resupply.

You need to send in waves upon waves of Grots or Snotlings to soak up all their ammo, then when they are dry, have the Orks charge

Orks are a good call generally. You want to put them in situations where they need to be using the higher power settings on their lasweapons to have any meaningful effect.

Also, definitely limit their ability to resupply. A single combat encounter shouldn't last longer than ten rounds, but if they're not getting to resupply for most of a campaign (or even recharge a power pack), then that matters a lot.

Send them on a long mission without mid-mission resupply. Sure, at the beginning they'll have plenty of ammo, but later on? Grind down their ammo - and other supplies - over time. Logistical attrition.

Use multiple waves of attackers with minimal time in between waves. Use sturdier/more/harder to hit opponents. Use highly dodgy-types. Have attackers striking from range and from behind cover - maybe have some hiding and using silenced/whisperbolt weapons so that they don't reveal themselves instantly, forcing the players to hose down an area with fire, rather than at a defined target.

Also ... heavy/support weapons are supposed to have the capacity to lay down fire for extended periods. Basically, make them need to use that capability, and then add some more enemies.

Don't their guns ever jam? By RAW that wipes out the whole magazine.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Reliable lasguns.

If they fire them on overload they Jam 10% of the time.

If you want to have them run low on ammunition you could do what I did to one of my groups at one point.

They were holding a trench line and what happened was I gave them a night of hell, heavy artillery and aircraft interdicting supply lines, repeated probing attacks and the odd full blown assault draining their resources forcing them to desperately try to conserve ammunition, eventually running dry and having to scavenge from corpses and then even take weapons off the enemy (and risking unknown weapons and trouble from the ad mech/commissariat if they got caught). I think by the end of it only 1 of their comrades was alive and most of the PCs had burnt a fate point, no one was unwounded some of them severely. Their 8 man squad had killed between them just over a hundred of the rebel troops they were fighting and their regiment had broken the rebel offensive and been flayed in the process. The fact that they ran out of ammunition and couldn't get their wounded evacuated and the brutal unending grind of the fighting made for a very intense session (it was the last session before we switched off to another game (we have tended to run games in 2-3 month blocks (sometimes referred to as series/seasons) before switching to another game for a while to prevent GM burnout or people getting bored, with a full weekend of playing to finish off the one game and starting the next) which meant the session took about 10-12 hours of play with people's real life exhaustion adding to the game experience).

M36 Lasgun will give you 15 shots with one charge pack. That is only 5 semiauto bursts.

...Unless of course you are using the gun on something other than the overload setting. My squad fought against orks and needed every bit of extra punch they could get so the guns were always either on overcharge or overload setting.

Personally I feel that the only reason not to use overcharge is when you are low on ammo. 30 per charge pack is quite enough.

I had the problem of never running out either. I also usually do Siege Regiments with Well-Provisioned, so I often have my players lugging 8+ Charge Packs for Lasguns and 6+ more for their Laspistols (they usually do a bunch of HOLD THE LINE kinda stuff) in any case, I found that players don't usually check their ammo, so running out often catches them off-guard. I also like to throw great big hordes of Tyranids and Orks or Chaos Space Marines (they demand it be challenging, no humie rebels with malfunctioning autoguns!) I find that a few good full auto bursts and they start to wonder where their ammo went when that Nob is bearing down on them.

EDIT: That much Dakka is also something of a relief too, given that you know you could hold out for QUITE a bit, provided you don't die yourself.

I had the same problem at first that everybody had tons of ammunition. Things changed when players started to use weapons with rare ammo like plasma guns. My current group i GM have autoguns in standard kit so nobody is trigger happy now.

Enforcing encumbrance rules really helps with this BTW. 10 lasgun clips weigh something like 10 pounds.

I always found it a bit of a stretch in my suspension of disbelief in a military game, that a fully trained soldier shouldn't be able to carry his standard kit all day long while marching. Equipment weight should not phase a guardsman. Equipment bulk is a far more realistic measure for penalties in movement etc.

Which I think mostly shows how ridiculous some of the weights are and I also agree with DeathByGrotz to a large degree.

The melta gun, which isn't a heavy weapon, weighs 15kg, and thus each clip weighs 1.5kg. Not included in the weight of the gun, of course. Even though the 10% of weapon weight really only makes sense if weapon weight includes one clip already...