• I'd like to use the soundstrike misslelauncher to not display just another heavy-bolter-devastator.

Am I right? There is not much to boost my to-hit chance comparable to laserpointer, telescopics and so on?

Do you think it is compatible with a jump pack? I've something about an autoloader on the backpack in the back of my mind ..

Cheesy or eligible to shot the ground under my target or wall behind it to affect it with my blast?

What are your usual habits/tricks to deal with melee as a devastator?

• Some sustained squadmodes (e.g. Strongpoint, Dig in) mention special conditions to keep them up. Do they break the sustain ('wasting' the cohesion points) when the conditions aren't met anymore (e.g. moving centre in Strongpoint mode)?

If you have a jump pack, you already have something on your back, so nowhere to keep your missiles.

No opinion on the other stuff, except that as a GM I wouldn't allow you to "shoot the ground" to get a bonus for a couple of reasons; e.g., that's what the to-hit roll with a blast weapon pretty much already represents to begin with,

• I'd like to use the soundstrike misslelauncher to not display just another heavy-bolter-devastator.

Am I right? There is not much to boost my to-hit chance comparable to laserpointer, telescopics and so on?

Do you think it is compatible with a jump pack? I've something about an autoloader on the backpack in the back of my mind ..

Cheesy or eligible to shot the ground under my target or wall behind it to affect it with my blast?

What are your usual habits/tricks to deal with melee as a devastator?

• Some sustained squadmodes (e.g. Strongpoint, Dig in) mention special conditions to keep them up. Do they break the sustain ('wasting' the cohesion points) when the conditions aren't met anymore (e.g. moving centre in Strongpoint mode)?
• What are your usual ways to keep cohesion up and high?
• Who decides who is affected by the Possibility Shield and when? Psyker during casting? Psyker every round? Random?
• The Invocation skill (and therefor the staff) looks rather underwhelming, do we miss something?
• Creating a new Chapter (Rites of Battle), some solo modes seem rather unbalanced, rerolling a characteristic (e.g. weaponskill or balistic) looks far more powerful than the others.

Devastators can also go with Plasma, Las or Auto Cannons for a bit of variety from bolters.

If you go via the new firing rules in Only War/Black Crusade which seems how the system is moving, by firing single shot you're actually increasing your BS by +10 compared to +0 and -10 for going full auto (as you're firing so many shots that aiming is a little patchy). Otherwise though one of the best methods of boosting your hit chance is simply aiming. Half action adds a +10 an a full action is +20 to hit on that next roll. That and the other stuff like boosting your BS through experience, various sights and scopes etc

Is a missile launcher compatible with a jump pack then? Yes. However the backpack mounted ammo supply would not be as you can't really store all that on your back. Think of it this way, do you think you could wear two huge rucksacks full of gear on your back? It wouldn't be practical. Also the supply itself would serve no benefit. The ruling for the supply dictates that it raises the ammo capacity on Plasma, Melta, Las, SP and Bolt weapons as well as flame. Missile launchers count as launchers therefore you cannot take a backpack ammo supply with this weapon.

Shooting the ground, no issues there although why aim for the terrain near them when you could just aim at them and do more damage? Unless you're wanting to weaken the area near them of course.

Melee as a devastator, you're doing it wrong. End of. If ANY enemy gets into melee range with then you and your squad have failed at your job. You are supposed to be putting out long range lethal firepower, suppressing and taking down enemies for others to pick off. They should then be ensuring they don't get close to you either. If the enemy is therefore close enough for you to identify his bad Chaos aftershave then they are not covering you properly nor are you putting out sufficient heavy fire. The Codex Astartes doth dictate:

"The Tactical Squad shall draw the enemy's fire, thus allowing the Devastator Squad to attack from a position of strength."

Cohesion stuff I pass on. Never used it myself, couldn't stand it.

Possibility shield then, the wording of the power is: "The Psyker and a number of allies equal to his PR in range..." so that limits it being indiscriminate. As to who picks the allies, well as the one casting the power the Psyker should get to determine at time of initial manifestation whom it should affect. This will need to be recalculated each round though as it is limited by range so if someone leaves range of power they cease to be affected by it. Whether someone else takes it then is up to you.

Invocation, it's better than you think. Fettered power tests are safe, no chance of psychic mess ups but the trade off is that you make the psychic test at half your usual PR, so a bog standard librarian fresh out the books will be around PR3. Half that (round up) and you're on 2. With Invocation though that means you get to roll at PR3, same as if it were unfettered but without the risks. As your PR rises the gap widens between your PR and the result but the extra point of PR on a safe force test is worth considering.

Modes and such, again I ignored them. I preferred ad-hoc tactics and modes.

Thank you both for your opinion.

Devastators can also go with Plasma, Las or Auto Cannons for a bit of variety from bolters.

Beginners renown

If you go via the new firing rules in Only War/Black Crusade [...] That and the other stuff like boosting your BS through experience, various sights and scopes etc

We got only some Deathwatch books at hand (Rulebook, Rites, 1st Founding, Emperors Chosen, various campaign stuff). Sights and scopes are all restriced to other guns, none of them is allowed to plug to a launcher as far as I can see.

Is a missile launcher compatible with a jump pack then? Yes. However the backpack mounted ammo supply ...

Me was not talking about the (additional) ammo backpack for heavy weapons. The description of the launcher states: "The Soundstrike pattern overcomes the single capacity of the launch tube by attaching a special missile rack and auto-loader to a backpack power unit."

Shooting the ground, no issues there although why aim for the terrain near them when you could just aim at them and do more damage?

For area of effect weapons it does not matter damage wise. Though the ground can not dodge and might incure further bonuses (size, inmovable).

With Invocation is my issue is it takes time and is at least in the beginning to granted. Time is often limited or casting it twice yields a bigger result than casting it one time with invocation. Later with higher rolls (invocation and psy rating) the gain is even smaller.

Looking at the design of a soundstrike though and sketches it's a vertical rack mounted atop the weapon itself rather than backpack so once fired the next round drops down and clicks in. I would guess it wouldn't conflict but trying to carefully navigate a jump pack with one of those is a different logistical matter!

With the sights and stuff, must admit didn't spot it was in content of launchers. I would say though that usually rockets are used for aiming at big metal boxes on tracks, huge snarling beasts about the same size intent on seeing the colour of your insides or fixed structures as opposed to massed light/scattered heavy infantry. As a result you already get your BS modified due to the size of what you are aiming at. They are usually tank busting items with limited rate of fire so I guess it will be careful aiming, bonus due to size and then fire. Using them on infantry would work and hurt but it's not ideal.

You say that about Invocation but that time taken for a safer roll can be important especially if you wanted to use a few mind affecting poets without detection (there is one or two IIRC). Niche but if you are required to restrain your abilities then might as well use it. Plus GM discretion is good on that. One I had granted extra bonuses and effects to the power because I had invoked it first. Made for excellent roleplay potential.

If you are aiming at a specific point on the ground (say, a man-sized area), which is what you have to do to get a blast centered in a specific area, you are in fact aiming at a man-sized area and not the planet Earth.

Maybe an example makes it clear.

Shooting the victim: BS +/-0 (aware of me, man sized, medium range etc.)
Shooting the ground below it: BS +0 (medium range, man sized (I want the hit close to my victim)) +20 (at least it counts as 'stunned', the 'helpless' section does not cover ranged attacks unfortunately)

As this plan will come to my mind even without considering game mechanics, I'm not sure it may come at hand in game.
Btw. what happens if I fail the roll? Nothing? Scattering section mentiones only grenades.

Calgor Grim, the frag missles do not look like they are any useful against big metal boxes Although hordes may get size modifiers to alleviate the to-hit. SoI'd say point taken, common targets for launchers are big.

Calgor Grim, the frag missles do not look like they are any useful against big metal boxes

At 2D10 Pen 4 it should JUST be able to crack the rear armour on some vehicles...barely. The odds of it are patchy but who cares! Predator tanks are 20 armour (or very close to) on the back end so you could still take one out with a Frag Missile.

The morale of this story, if you are a tank never show your rear to anything that isn't friendly

I played a missile devastator and loved it. Buy concussion missiles every time if you can.

Cohesion is best gotten via an Ultramarine.

Looking at the design of a soundstrike though and sketches it's a vertical rack mounted atop the weapon itself rather than backpack so once fired the next round drops down and clicks in. I would guess it wouldn't conflict but trying to carefully navigate a jump pack with one of those is a different logistical matter!

After another search with refined wording I uncovered this:

source

Looking at the design of a soundstrike though and sketches it's a vertical rack mounted atop the weapon itself rather than backpack so once fired the next round drops down and clicks in. I would guess it wouldn't conflict but trying to carefully navigate a jump pack with one of those is a different logistical matter!

After another search with refined wording I uncovered this:

source

Yeah that's definitely taking away your backpack slot. I was likely looking at a custom version.

The 2ned table top had the missiles in a magazine above the launcher.

Ok, going back to the top, it's late my time, my apologies if I double cover anything.

-Using soundstrike missiles is disadvantageous mechanically vs a heavy bolter. Double period. Even with errata stats. The reason is reactions- just like if you were using a lascannon, you are the number 1 threat (unless a Librarian is around). People will save their dodge reactions to dodge you, which means between that, cover, forcefields, and what have you, you will do a lot of whiffing. Most people only have one reaction, so multiple hits matters, a lot. Now, there is something to be said about being the big bad, and others being able to hit more, and what have you. However, you can still fill that role with a heavy bolter, and actually hit things (it's easy to succeed on a dodge check, harder to get 6 degrees of success, and mechanically, there are way more things that boost your to hit than there are things that boost your dodge). Finally, unlike the lascannon, you aren't in a different realm entirely vs the damage from a heavy bolter. It's excessively unlikely that, with a soundstrike missile launcher, you are hitting at a vastly different range than a heavy bolter, or doing more damage in your one hit (if you hit) than you would with multiple hits with the heavy bolter.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use it. It is definitely different, and definitely not a terrible choice. It's just not the "optimal" choice, and you should be prepared to fail to do damage, frequently. Finally, be aware that the way dodging AOE things (like blast weapons) works is that a dodge automatically moves them to the outside of the AOE. If the edge of the AOE is more than their agility bonus or is otherwise unreachable, they automatically *fail* to dodge. People in confined rooms with others blocking the exit, or in hallways, etc, are prime targets, whereas there is almost no one in open space who will successfully dodge, but lack the agility bonus to reach the edge of the area of effect of your missiles.

-Shooting the wall behind them or the ground beneath them is likely no more difficult than shooting them (+/- 0, barring size issues, which are unlikely for the standard foes / hordes you will face), but definitely seems viable to me. Note that once again, hitting is unlikely to be the issue, them dodging is far more likely to cause you problems. They still get to dodge, so it really doesn't matter that much.

-Not compatible with a jump pack, as stated.

-In terms of sustaining abilities: GM fiat applies, of course, but RAW: "To sustain an ability the Battle-Brother simply declares he is sustaining the ability and then may keep it active from Round to Round provided he is in Squad Mode and does not active any new Squad Mode abilities." Abilities like strong point and dig in, you can lose your *bonus*, to be sure, but that does not mean you have stopped sustaining the squad mode ability, that happens when you say it happened.

-Usual way to keep cohesion up and high is with a ultramarine tac marine, apparently you can get some abilities to recover cohesion. Otherwise, best way is to not waste cohesion on things only you or a few people can use, and to not fail fear checks. Achieving objectives also recovers cohesion.

-Possibility shield not gonna comment too much beyond what Calgor Grim said, other than to say, when sustaining a power that affects X, Y, and Z (chosen at casting), having it affect Q would normally require ceasing sustaining the current power and using it again. Thus, if Z roamed out (and was thus unaffected by it that round) then came back in, he would be affected, but squadmates K and Q wandering in after the initial effect could not normally pick up the slack left by Z leaving. The wording of how powers work leave that open to interpretation and disagreement, though. GM fiat as always applies.

-Invocation is 100% necessary for psykers, and 100% useless for everyone else.

-Creating a new chapter, there are *absolutely* some things (such as rerolling a characteristic test) *way* better than everything else. 100% of that process is GM guided and GM approval, though. Any GM worth their salt will not allow you to make a chapter that rerolls WS or BS skill tests (or WP for that matter), flat out. Any GM who does allow that will regret it. Rerolling perception tests, well, that's not so bad, that's more in line. Even Agi or Int tests, though more powerful than the other abilities, might be balanced by deep negatives elsewhere (like missing organs, for example, causing you to not have the unnatural toughness trait). Keep in mind that such a process, much like the rest of deathwatch, is much less about the theoretical situations that *could* arise, and much more about the actual situations that present itself. So if your GM allowed someone to make crazy OP melee / shooter guy, and you're feeling left in the dust, that's one thing. If you're worried because the rules are borked, don't be. That's half the reason the GM exists, is to balance everything out.

Thank you for your elaborated answer. Don't mind double covering, different opinions or supporting existing ones is no drawback imho.

One advantage i'll point out of the missile launcher over the heavy bolter is its benefit from squad abilities. Particularly fire for effect. Since you're only firing one shot, you get to fire a whole nother missile as a reaction (and they've probably already dodged your first shot-oops).

A second advantage is the special missiles like concussion and plasma.

A third advantage is its low cost. Most heavy weapons cost around 30 requisition. The missile launcher cost 10 (and special missiles are another 20 bringing you on par). *But* when upgrading to master crafted, you're only spending 20 + 20 more for missiles instead of 60 to 70. That means you use a normal signature wargear to permanently requisition a MC missile launcher.