bogi_khaosa said:

While bolters on the other hand are far from military exclusive weapons. When you see a bolter or bolt pistol, you either see an oversized version in the hands of an astartes, or you see it in the hands of an officer within the imperial guard, or you see it in the hands of civilian nobility.

While certainly having it's niche within the military, it's also a weapon of status both in the civilian sector and the military sector. (that's why you rarely see IG grunts armed with bolters, but they have lasguns instead)

Varnias Tybalt said:

Which makes them even less likely to get into criminal hands, or the hands of anybody who isn't military or extremely rich. Your average Imperial citizen on Scintilla has probably never seen a bolter.

I have to disagree, he's seen it in the hands of every rich noble's bodyguard who can get one. Folks, military gear is common in the imperium. Seeing a guy in armor and carrying anything from a lasweapon to military grade firepower (meaning heavy bolter/stubber/grenade launchers) is not only not going to do more than lift a couple eyebrows ("I wonder how he affords that?") it will rarely draw the attention of the enforcers (he must have shown his permits on landing, right?). I mean come on, down hive thugs in Necromunda have bolters (you can argue about the quality of them, but they are there) how can people think that they aren't available to the much richer middle/uphivers? On Scintilla, PTU says you can walk around with a bodyguard's license and any basic, pistol or Melee weapon and the cops won't even say "boo!" Where does the idea that you need pistols and concealable armor to operate covertly come from?

bogi_khaosa said:

Well fair enough. You're entitled to your opinions about how you envisage things working in your 40k, but does this really address the point of the OP?

The OP basically says 'lasguns and bolters are the icons of 40k, so why don't Dark Heresy acolytes use them'? Its a very good point.

The ICONS of 40K are lasguns and bolters...i'm not sure this can be reliably disputed, since if they aren't then which weapons are?

So, given that they are icons, why then are they not the 'weapons of choice for any serious user' in the world of Dark Heresy. Simple fact is for killing power the bolter should pretty much outclass everything except the anti-armour specials. for utility, the lasgun sould outclass everything. Making the choice between either of these unless you go for a 'rule of cool' wierd option or can't get anything but a stubber or auto weapon.

DH rules however model the autogun as the main choice contradicting the 40K iconic status of the las/bolter options.

You might put in place your own perspective that las/bolters are military only in your version of 40K (and we all have our own versions since there is little 'constant' or 'fixed' about how to interpret the Imperium) and thats fine.

However, it doesn't change the fact that lasguns and bolters ARE ICONIC and the fact that they see little use in DH because rules-wise they aren't as good as other weapons is an issue for some players.

I'll give you an analogy. GW produced a Judge Dredd game a long time ago. he ICONIC weapon of a Megacity Judge is the Lawgiver pistol. In the JD RPG is was awesome, doing everything you needed it to do. Great variety of ammo for any occasion, huge ammo capacity, light, easily used, and ICONIC. In the game you also got a 'scatter gun' on your bike. Basically a shotgun, and i wanted my Judge to be a bit different and use the scatter gun. I abandoned it a bit quick because the Lawgiver was simply the weapon of choice.

So it should be for the ICONIC weapons of the 40K world...lasguns if you want unrivalled utility. Bolt guns if you want unrivalled killpower. Other options should be there, but the icons should the be the weapons everyone wants...

Your average hiver will probably never see a noble, and therefore will never see a rich noble's bodyguard.

If you have a bolter, that means that either you can afford both it and the 16-Thrones-a-pop ammunition or somebody is sponsoring you who can. In either case, this makes you a highly unusual person who, unless you are around lots of other highly unusual people, is going to attract considerable attention.

Luddite said:

Caveat: I have never played tabletop and so probably come at things from a different angle from a lot of other people. The TT is a military-oriented wargame, and hence focuses on war and the equipment used in war. I come at it from the Abnett novels (though they are conceptually flawed IMO), and Eisenhorn is usually using... an autopistol. So the bolter and lasgun aren't really that iconic for me, and don't seem that iconic for the everyday Imperium. They're iconic for war.

The bolter DOES outclass everything except the antiarmor specials and the plasma weapons...

If there is one weapon I think should maybe be improved it's the laspistol, which just seems totally odd.

Well fair enough. You're entitled to your opinions about how you envisage things working in your 40k, but does this really address the point of the OP?

The OP basically says 'lasguns and bolters are the icons of 40k, so why don't Dark Heresy acolytes use them'? Its a very good point.

The ICONS of 40K are lasguns and bolters...i'm not sure this can be reliably disputed, since if they aren't then which weapons are?

So, given that they are icons, why then are they not the 'weapons of choice for any serious user' in the world of Dark Heresy. Simple fact is for killing power the bolter should pretty much outclass everything except the anti-armour specials. for utility, the lasgun sould outclass everything. Making the choice between either of these unless you go for a 'rule of cool' wierd option or can't get anything but a stubber or auto weapon.

DH rules however model the autogun as the main choice contradicting the 40K iconic status of the las/bolter options.

You might put in place your own perspective that las/bolters are military only in your version of 40K (and we all have our own versions since there is little 'constant' or 'fixed' about how to interpret the Imperium) and thats fine.

However, it doesn't change the fact that lasguns and bolters ARE ICONIC and the fact that they see little use in DH because rules-wise they aren't as good as other weapons is an issue for some players.

I'll give you an analogy. GW produced a Judge Dredd game a long time ago. he ICONIC weapon of a Megacity Judge is the Lawgiver pistol. In the JD RPG is was awesome, doing everything you needed it to do. Great variety of ammo for any occasion, huge ammo capacity, light, easily used, and ICONIC. In the game you also got a 'scatter gun' on your bike. Basically a shotgun, and i wanted my Judge to be a bit different and use the scatter gun. I abandoned it a bit quick because the Lawgiver was simply the weapon of choice.

So it should be for the ICONIC weapons of the 40K world...lasguns if you want unrivalled utility. Bolt guns if you want unrivalled killpower. Other options should be there, but the icons should the be the weapons everyone wants...

The bolter does more damage than anything, the lasgun never breaks and has HUGE ammo capacity. Exactly what makes them iconic weapons in the first place. The only problem I see is that they both lack full auto capacity.

I do not know why it is difficult to accept that there are (huge) differences within the (huge) Imperium depending on where within the Imperium you are. In the Ultramar region and the Eye of Terror region it is probably more common to ever see a Space Marine in your life or know someone who does. In the former region you might have heard about Tyranids and Tau but not about daemonic creatures whereas in the latter region it might be the other way around. There might be regions in the Imperium where Inquisitors wield Autopistols (e.g. Scarus sector) and there might be regions where down-hive gangers use bolt weapons (e.g. Necromunda region). There are probably regions with a stronger Las-weapon focus (e.g. war regions like Cadia) and there are probably regions with a prevalence of SP-weapons (e.g. Calixis sector).

Hell, there are even very different approaches in this regard on our puny real life planet. In parts of the US you are allowed to take an assault rifle to a public protest, while in Germany you are not even allowed to own an airsoft pistol or automatic paintball gun. So, why it is hard to accept there are differences in a fricking Imperium the size of a galaxy.

BTW Necromunda is a little silly IMO (especially the hive architecture/design) and I personally see it a little like Blood Bowl in Fantasy. Based on a similar background but not in the same 'reality'.

jonathan_sicari said:

PtU clearly states that military/heavy weapons are normally not allowed. Showing them openly will surely lead to more than a few raised eyebrows and draw the attention of the local enforcers. The "he must have shown his permits on landing, right?" arguement is absurd, otherwise the police could always say "well the customs must have checked it" even in our world.

The idea that you need pistols and concealable armour to operate covertly comes from the idea that you need to look (or be) rather ordinary to not attract unwanted attention. If you walk into the mid- or lower hive (ie. Corscarla District in EoD) with heavy weapons and carapace armour every cultist and enforcer within kilometers will be keeping an eye on you. Or do you think all the workers in the local factoria go to work with shouldered missile launchers?

bogi_khaosa said:

Thats fine, but the iconic weapons of 40K overall are the bolter and lasgun. Wether that iconic status represents a part of the 40k universe or not, or wether you've come at the IP from a different direction to me doesn't really matter. Take a look at pretty much every 40k image from GW across any of its game lines (including the FFG license.

Bolters and lasguns.

So the fact that in DH these aren't generally the weapons of choice, for the various reasons expressed means the OP does have a valid point.

bogi_khaosa said:

Hmm...except it doesn't...as per Graver's point above about autofire.

bogi_khaosa said:

All lasweapons in fact. The simply don't reflect the reason why the Imperial Guard uses this weapon in their trillions. Aside from a large ammo capacity, las weapons need something to reflect their utility hinted at by the fluff...

If the bolters and lasweapons were modelled appropriately in the rules, the point of the OP would be moot since everyone would be using them as first choice as befits their status as 40k icons...

I understand why the guard use lasguns. They are cheap to maintain a supply of ammunition, and can be recharged by the sun. Ideal weapons for an army millions on millions strong.

However, autoguns used to be all kinds of poor in table top 2nd edition when pretty much only grots had them. They were also worse than lasguns in Necromunda. [the closest game previously existing to dark heresy]

Where they got the idea they should be better than lasguns I am not sure. There are a couple of ways to remedy the situation, easiest being make ammunition more expensive for Sp weapons, or harder to get. Or only local ammunition fits local guns. But you shouldn't really need to do this.

The bolters are a special case. Im leaning towards giving them out to the group as a reward, suitably name stamped and registered to the owners to prevent them being pawned off. With subsidised ammunition by the inquisition they might use them.

I would agree with Luddite that the Iconic weapon of 40k is the bolter. Hands down, along with Space Marines. Lasguns are actually known to be very poor in tabletop, usually known as flashlights, so any basis they should be picked on effectiveness is best not based on that!

Luddite said:

This is begging the question.

They are iconic because the TT, from which the images are drawn, is a wargame, not because they are actually really widely used in the 40K universe (outside war, for which they are designed). These images are used in the book because of a pre-Imperial cult called "marketing."

If lasguns were both superbadass and as superreliable and supercheap as they are supposed to be (reliability and cheapness being their signature features), then things would swing in the other direction, Why would anybody use an autogun? A lasgun with the same profile as an autogun, but with the Reliable trait and massive ammo and an Overcharge Pack, would be superior in all ways.

Full auto gives autoguns greater killing power against unarmored or lightly armored targets and/or targets with low Toughness Bonuses. Manstopper bullets do not help you against an Ork with a TB of 8 (although dumdums will if he's not wearing armor). Autoguns are for clearing crowds of lightly armored opponents, which is as it should be. Boltguns are for taking out people in power armor and Lictors.

Really, think about it. A boltgun with full auto fire would be insane.

Crimsonsphinx said:

This sort of makes my point in an unintentional (I think) way. Space Marines are indeed iconic for the Imperium (both for us and for the fictitious people in the Imperium). Does that mean they are common, with a Space Marine around every corner? Or that Space Marines are the best choice for every combat?

The fact that the las gun is the prefered weapon of the IG does not mean that they will be the prefered weapons in other situations. You can't just use "iconic" in itself as an argument, not without context. The context in this case is that they are used due to beng cheap, easy to recharge and reliable. Perfect for the imperial guard. Not so perfect for acolytes.

Hell, even in the tabletop (Codex: Armageddon, and the Inquisitor core rulebook), the autogun is acknowledged to be popular among a number of demographics, even over the 'iconic' lasgun. The reasons for this are partly psychological (it's far more intimidating/satisfying to have a loud roar/bang when firing, and likewise an impressive muzzle flash), and partly because an autogun has a better chance of causing hydraulic shock (and, indeed, far better penetration, unless firing frangible rounds), and its' full-auto capacity. That said, there are also full-auto lasguns in fluff, cited as being experimental, temperamental, and likely to fail after 10000 shots (the Fractrix-pattern Assault Laser).

bogi_khaosa said:

As they should be.

As fits the fluff.

As befitting their iconic status as THE takedown weapon of the Imperium.

As the weapon of choice for a serious user.

As they are not in Dark Heresy.

Hence the OP's valid question and the plethora of other threads about how boltguns 'suck', etc.

To illustrate my arguement, rather than just moaning about things, i tend to fix what i see as an issue. So as to how lasguns and bolters could have been modelled in Dark Heresy, you might like to view my files on the subject over at Dark Reign.

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Luddite said:

Are we looking at the same game? Bolters ARE already the takedown weapon of choice and the weapon of choice for serious users... at least in my group and they're not too different from others. Due to their high Pen, tearing, and to a lesser extent, the X damage, they are better at taking down big tough targets then most any weapon outside of plasma and melta weapons. And there IS a bolter with full auto, it's called a Heavy Bolter and it is sick. There's no problem with bolters or their stats. From what i gather, the only thing keeping every acolyte from totting one around is the cost of ammo. So, if you feel that bolters aren't getting enough use, stop making your PC's count every throne and pay for every bolt, give them a price break on bolter ammo, or give them their ammo for free. Prest-o, problem solved. With bolters, it's not their stats but GM's approach to the setting tats keeping them out of PC's hands.

Why does "iconic" mean "if you point it at something, whatever it is, that something dies"?

If bolters are pumped up any more, there is nothing that will be able to stand against them other than a full-fledged Astartes or a Carnifex. A group armed with bolters will no longer be playing a creepy horror game, but rather an RPG version of Doom I where everybody has a BFG.

Also, if bolters get amped up, plasma and melta weapons will have to get amped up even more. Plasma pistols are going to be doing 4d10 Pen 12 damage.

In the fluff, bolters are NOT superkillers, except against normal human targets, against which they do now quite well. Plasma and melta weapons are.

The cascade effect is going to go down the chain as well. If the players can use bolters, the enemies can too. That means that whenever an enemy points one of these super-amped bolters at a player character, the character will die. The only way to avoid this is by increasing player Wounds. Which will require increasing enemy Wounds to compensate. And so we're back where we started.

thats a good point, people tend to overjuice marines and their weapons, a basic brother-marine can be killed by ten guardsmen, a bolter will kill anyone in flak armour but it still has its limitations, plasma & Melta guns are actully more effective at dealing with armoured foes otherwise why would marines use them, i think you have to be sensible, theres a lot of veiws on this, if taken from the core game codex then a tau fire warrior pulse riffle is actully better than a bolter and a las gun is that much worse its a case of leveling things out and remembering the most important rule, to keep things fun and exciting!

Graver said:

QFT.

Also I don't remember "iconic" bolt weapons being fired in full auto burst mode. Aren't they exactly like they should, very high damage per shot making heads explode left and right? Hipshooting? I want a bolt or inferno pistol. Very big strong Daemon or Chaos Space Marine? I want 2 bolt or inferno pistols with Dual Mighty Shot doing heaviest weapon damage.

The reason why players refrain from using bolt pistols is the price of their ammo versus income of 200 Thrones per month. If they have to save every Throne for durable equipment they won't spend half of their income for ammo. They also won't unnecessarily use Manstoppers (a full auto of an Autogun is 8 Thrones) when standard bullets are Pinning just fine and many mooks got no armor anyway.

I've read a suggestion in another thread: give them a free bolt pistol clip for every mission. Let's them use the bolt pistol when needed.

As to Las weapons, I'd have expected them to get auto fire options but the IH remedies that somewhat. They are cheap, reliable and the ammo is basically free. And before one gets their hand on a Nomad, the Long Las (with an overcharge pack) is a much better sniper weapon than the Hunting Rifle (with Manstoppers)... 4 times the clip, Reliable, free ammo and +1 damage versus +2 Penetration and 1 Throne per shot.

Graver said:

Agreed. You're right that in the RAW its mainly the poverty of the Acolytes and the high cost of ammo that keeps them out of PC hands. And your fix is simple.

Personally i don't like the tearing quality and messed up damage of the various bolt weapons (heavy bolters have a lower possible damage than bolters!!) so i reworked them, not to up-power them, but to make them more consistent with the way i wanted things. In my DH, all weapons roll 1d10+# for damage. The 2d10+ thing just doesn't float my statistical boat...but thats fine.

However i think this is straying away from the OP (or at least my understanding of it) a bit.

So lasguns and bolters aren't used as often as expected...

Why?

Is that a problem?

And if it is, what can we do to remedy that?

It seems adding full auto and increasing the access to bolter ammo are fairly easy tweak to start with....

EDIT: Actually, on review, thats not exactly what the OP is about but it seems to feed into the 'how to get PCs to use other weapons' idea fairly well...

Crimsonsphinx said:

This is pretty much as it should be. The acolytes are special forces, not Imp Guard mooks with mass-produced standard issue lasguns, so they should have better than average weaponry. On the other hand, there exists the extremely rare and very expensive bolter, but those are too hard to get hold of for the regular acolyte. Their choice of weapons makes sense to me.

The "iconic" argument is irrelevent. Lasguns and bolters are iconic because they are the primary weapns of two of the TT armies, the Guard and the Marines (three if you include Chaos Marines). Acolytes aren't Guard and they aren't Marines. They have access to different resources. It wouldn't make sense for them to be using lasguns ('cause they suck) or bolters ('cause they are too rare) all the time.

Crimsonsphinx said:

Our group of 6 is only packing the armageddon cited above.. The other full auto weapon is a spectre (and we cant actually decide which one is better...). For pistols we have a mixed bag of hellpistols, hecuters and .54 tranters..

S.K.

I guess this thread has evolved from my origional point, but its all useful and interesting anyway

I think I would just like my players to take more notice of what their character would know, as opposed to what they [the player] read in a book. In my opinion [and it is only that] a guardsman would not sell his lasgun for a "better" autogun. Likely he would keep what he knows, especially as there is likely to be some hellish indoctrination in the merits of a lasgun when someone signs up to the guard.

If said guardsman subsequently witnesses an autogun being so much better in gameplay, or a realistic backstory event, I would have no issue. Im hoping some of this makes sense?

The boltgun is IMO quite effective in rules, but its ammunition makes it very difficult to justify. Im pretty sure free ammunition is a good enticement, but knowing my players they would sell the ammo and claim they had used it!

I can see no reason, on rules alone, to ever pick a lasgun over an autogun as a first choice gun. As a backup, a lasgun has far more merits due to its incredible reliability and low running costs.

Pistol wise there are a lot more viable options, a lot of them have merits and it is difficult to pick just one. The Orthlac gets picked due to its high damage and fully variable fire modes. I quite like the tranter and hecuters as well as the dueling las though

I think I would just like my players to take more notice of what their character would know, as opposed to what they [the player] read in a book. In my opinion [and it is only that] a guardsman would not sell his lasgun for a "better" autogun. Likely he would keep what he knows, especially as there is likely to be some hellish indoctrination in the merits of a lasgun when someone signs up to the guard.

If said guardsman subsequently witnesses an autogun being so much better in gameplay, or a realistic backstory event, I would have no issue. Im hoping some of this makes sense?

That depends on your take on the "experience" of your group pre-game. If the guardsman has some experience in war outside the guard or spent some time in regiments not using lasguns (yes, there are some of these), I'd fully expect him to know about the virtues and flaws of different weapons. After all, "weapon nut" is pretty much the job description of guardsmen in the Inquisition.

I can see no reason, on rules alone, to ever pick a lasgun over an autogun as a first choice gun. As a backup, a lasgun has far more merits due to its incredible reliability and low running costs.

Two basic weapons are pretty cumbersome.

Cifer said:

First of all guardsmen are suposed to be able to use any gun, after all thats what there life is all about so id expcet them to be able to pic up a gun and within five minutes know how to fire and reload it, plus how difrent can weapons be!!

secondly I limit my players to one riffle sized gun on a back strap so they have to choose what weapon it is the havealso its more realistic