Do Space Marines have to carry all their issues equipment?

By xoff, in Deathwatch Rules Questions

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Our GM has instituted the "5 hands" house rule for weapons (you can only carry 5 hands worth of weapons into battle.)

For my Librarian, my issued equipment is:

Force Staff (2h)

Bolt Pistol (1h)

Bolter (2h)*

So if I wanted a hand flamer (1h) instead, I'd have to leave my bolt pistol at the base to follow the 5 Hands rule.

Several of the players say it is Heresy not to carry all your issued equipment..but this means I could never use a different weapon!

I disagree... my theory is that just because a Space Marine is *issued* something doesn't mean they have it with them all the time: it's mostly in the Armory except when checked out, under the care of the Adeptus Mechanicus, being cleaned, the machine spirit administrated to, etc.

This is the same with modern soldiers (except for the whole machine spirit part, but I know at least two retired soldiers who would tell you their M4s had a machine spirit!): when on a secure base you don't have your weapons, they're in the Armory. You collect your weapons from the Armory during load out, and may select different weapons (with approval, the whole Requisition process) based on Mission Parameters.

Thoughts/commentary?

* But weildable 1h because we're butch Marines, right?

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"5 hands" is a houserule, so of course people will have different opinions about it. Hell, opinions vary wildly even about the RAW. What I'm saying is that it's not very surprising if some players disagree with their GM about this sort of stuff - especially on a topic such as this, it comes down to personal preference, and interpretation. In this particular case, some people think Marines running around with 2 tons of equipment is silly, others prefer not to think about how the Marine would end up looking or where exactly this gear would be stored. It's as simple as that. :)


Myself, I like "5 hands" as it's an easy way to keep things somewhat more realistic. As such, I consider the issued equipment to more or less describe a list of things made available to you, rather than something that is *forced* on the individual Marine. You could even check it out of the armoury, but leave it in your transport, allowing you to swap gear mid-mission if you can make it back to the T-Hawk or Rhino.


tl;dr: Players dislike the GM's houserule and are just looking for cheap ways to discredit it. It's just as if I'd yell "Heresy!" every time the game forces me to re-roll the attack for Righteous Fury, instead of just adding another d10 damage right away.

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Space Marines can carry a Bolter with one hand ;)

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Well, anyone can -- most people would just need special equipment to aim and discharge it safely and with any chance of actually hitting something. :lol:

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There should be no problem with leaving gear in the armory. However rule wise, there is no reward for this. My devastator never took out his standard HB in favor of a missile launcher. Even though the ML is cheaper req, i never got a refund.