You know your playing only war when none of your players have not read the uplifting primer, and think guardsmen are just idiots with lasguns.

Whoa! Double Negative

Though, having a military background, some of the stuff in it is actually (moderately) useful, if you can filter out the propaganda. Especially the thing about using socks to collect dew as you walk for an alternate source of water.

(from the prayer section) The litany of stealth always cracks me up. So counter productive!

Guardsman: "Oh imperator cloack me in shadows so that i might strike unseen upon thy foes and..."

Fire warrior: "I can hear you! And who are you talking to?"

You know you're playing Only War when what was supposed to be a gritty, grimdark story becomes The Expendables.

Sadly true

A few things from last sessions.

You know it's only war when:

-Every player want to kill the commisar but since nobody can they just wish that he will get hit by stray bullet

-You charge against riptide only with chainsword because your commisar decides it's better to die honorably than run like coward

-After you get stranded in jungle, suffer from tropical illness, have few levels of fatigue and only a primitive weapon and you still are better at fighting than common citizen and can kill entire squad of untrained people

-In said jungle you find a creature that resembles furby, hunt it ,and from it's spiky teeth you decide to craft furby sword

-After a few days of trying to survive in the jungle suffering from illness, halucination, dehydration you start to wish that it would be better to die charging tau with a spoon

-You wake up on beach and see a few boxes from crashed ship hoping you find weapons, food or equipment only to discover they all are full of uplifting primer copies

...when as a medic after being shot to hell in the leg, at -7 on the critical table and almost losing it gets so sick of being used as the walking target and punchbag for bad luck that when the rest of his squad push forward to the objective, he fixes himself up enough and rather than hobble to the front to join in, walks back to the parked and waiting tanks. While on his own using his human modified narthecium with only a dog comrade for company and several kilometers from anyone else who might be able to help or see him if it all went wrong, makes himself a scolding hot kettle and cup of tea (he is British after all) and then subsequently hacks his now infected leg off and cauterises with the scolding kettle, passing the medicae, toughness and willpower rolls to avoid dying with his last fatepoint.

After finishing a nice cup of Imperial Yorkshire Tea, still in a metric *ahem*ton of pain for all of it but not complaining he then takes his own medical grade sedatives and lays himself out until his squad return to find him unconscious in the back of said tank.

...he then also gets a telling off by a superior when they get back for bleeding inside an Imperial vehicle and ordered to clean it up as per the IIUP.

Wow. "Keep calm and drink tea" indeed.

**** straight he got a telling off! The Tactica Imperium is quite clear: its: "when in doubt, move forward!" Not "head back to the own lines and stick the cettle on". Even if it is to patch yourself up.

When as Heavy Gunner with a malfunctioning Heavy Stubber with tyranids incoming you swing your heavy stubbed like a club, burning the hell out of your hands and killing more bugs like this than when you were shooting.

When this gets you two medals in one action.

Aparantly there is this move in swordfighting with a two-handed sword, called a "Mordslag" where you grip the blade and bash your oponents head in with the handle/crossguard. (why this exists i don't know, unless it's to troll your oponent. "Oh you see this big sword here, you think i was gonna slash you with it, huh? NOPE! Blunt damage to the faaaace biatch!" ) Also something best not done with a chainsword.

Aparantly there is this move in swordfighting with a two-handed sword, called a "Mordslag" where you grip the blade and bash your oponents head in with the handle/crossguard. (why this exists i don't know, unless it's to troll your oponent. "Oh you see this big sword here, you think i was gonna slash you with it, huh? NOPE! Blunt damage to the faaaace biatch!" ) Also something best not done with a chainsword.

For your encore try it with a power sword which was left switched on.

At this point even a genestealer hybrid would have run out of hands.

Any other weapons (available to imperial guard) that can be misused in spectacular fashion?

Like teaching the ogrynn to throw demo charges like a discus.

.....When your heavy gunner has to use a las cannon to make sure the ork stays dead.

When it seems far easier to destroy an ork vehicle than it does it's occupants

When the entire group realises that they are fighting proper orks and not those pesky D&D powderpuffs

Just like in the TT game. Blow up the ork trukk and it still comes at you , all wrecked and exploding with the surviving orks haning on for dear life.

That's why I equipped my Veterans to be Flamer heavy Orks still die to templates when three flamers roast the same guys!

Yup flamers is good but i never understood why only marine vets and terminators get heavy flamers.

Same for ogryn: if they are smart enough to figure out a ripper gun than they should be able to handle "tube-with-button, push button-flame comes out." weapons.

Wait I figured it out why ogryn don't get heavy flamers:

Commisar: "Roight lads! Get in the chimera!"

Bone 'ead: "Dawut?"

Commisar: "The metal box on threads!"

Bone 'ead: "Oh da armored troop carrier, roight got it!"

Dork the Ogryn: "But iz dark in dere!"

Bone 'ead: "dumbaz! we gots da tiny flame fer lightz!"

Dork: "Oh yez! still dark! Me make flame bigga!"

Commisar: "no wai-"

Chimera: BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!

Enginseer: "That's the third time this week..."

My Lascannon toting Stormtrooper is much the same as the aforementioned Heavy Gunner. Always Double Tap Ork Nobz with the Lascannon to absolutely make sure they die lol.

Yup flamers is good but i never understood why only marine vets and terminators get heavy flamers.

Same for ogryn: if they are smart enough to figure out a ripper gun than they should be able to handle "tube-with-button, push button-flame comes out." weapons.

Wait I figured it out why ogryn don't get heavy flamers:

Commisar: "Roight lads! Get in the chimera!"

Bone 'ead: "Dawut?"

Commisar: "The metal box on threads!"

Bone 'ead: "Oh da armored troop carrier, roight got it!"

Dork the Ogryn: "But iz dark in dere!"

Bone 'ead: "dumbaz! we gots da tiny flame fer lightz!"

Dork: "Oh yez! still dark! Me make flame bigga!"

Commisar: "no wai-"

Chimera: BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!

Enginseer: "That's the third time this week..."

This had me rolling lol

You know you're playing Only War when you can't read a logbook without the Medical Officer stressing "No explosions this time."

When the group plan an attack on a bunker have one standing trooper to deal with having set fire to all the others and then the weapons specialist (flamer) and also having a chainsword. Decides to save on ammo by charging the last 'traitor' killing him just as the first of the grenades the 'traitors' were carrying explodes. Leaving him unconscious. Then the Psyker 'says the grenades will need to cook off, and tries to rescue him, the ratling goes in too but manages to get far enough away from the blast radius of the chain grenade apocalypse that took place...Two PC's one mistake.....

Aparantly there is this move in swordfighting with a two-handed sword, called a "Mordslag" where you grip the blade and bash your oponents head in with the handle/crossguard. (why this exists i don't know, unless it's to troll your oponent. "Oh you see this big sword here, you think i was gonna slash you with it, huh? NOPE! Blunt damage to the faaaace biatch!" ) Also something best not done with a chainsword.

Sometimes, when you have a slashing and piercing weapon, you need a blunt weapon to do something useful through their **** armor. Besides, a two handed cruciform longsword is a complete, cohesive integrated weapons system. The blade can cut, slice, strike blows, and thrust. The quillons can punch, hook, and trap. The pommel can pummel. The whole thing is made to be used together. That's part of why I don't like some of these super weird fantasy swords that much -- the moves are wayyy less versatile... Now, give me a super weird cool fantasy sword that you can use all the cool moves with, and I'm suddenly paying attention... actually, is there a sword design in 40k that does that?

Oh yeah like in D&D when you need blunt damage against skeletons!

The Wailing Doom (Eldar Avatar) looks pretty impressive.

... when your group of Guardsmen are debating whether doing Yarrick 2.0 with an Ork Bionik leg is a good idea, or if they should leave their Heavy Gunner to die since they're behind enemy lines, and he's lost a leg.

And they then decide to do it, the Medic trying to attach it hilariously botches his Medicae roll with rolls of 90+ four times in a row, and the GM gives him one last chance to do it. He spends two minutes getting ready, throws the dice, and rolls a natural 1.

And then the Heavy Gunner immediately declares, once he gets up, that he wants to check if the leg has any weapons attached.

... And when your sniper, an alcoholic (with the addiction trait), finds a bottle of amasec, but doesn't have a way of drinking it through his gas mask. He then looks around in the tank, declares that he wants to cut off a fuel line, and then drink with it as a straw.

"only two ways of looking at the world: Trough the scope of my long-las, or trough the bottom of a bottle of amasec."

"It was a headshot! To bad I aimed for the wrong head. Seeing double sucks when you are on a mission."

Drunk sniper is awesome!

Aparantly there is this move in swordfighting with a two-handed sword, called a "Mordslag" where you grip the blade and bash your oponents head in with the handle/crossguard. (why this exists i don't know, unless it's to troll your oponent. "Oh you see this big sword here, you think i was gonna slash you with it, huh? NOPE! Blunt damage to the faaaace biatch!" ) Also something best not done with a chainsword.

I know it as a Murderstroke, but i suppose that's the translation in German. As was mentioned, it's for a makeshift mace, a more common move however is holding the sword by the hilt as normal but placing your second hand midway up the blade, using it to lever into a soft spot like a joint.