First thing, looking for suggestions for a submachinegun statline. Preferably not "Use and autogun, give it compact"

Second, do you think there should be a greater range of solid projectile sniper rifles than the Nomad and a hunting rifle?

And I had another question, but I forgot what it was. Drat.

I've always assumed that the Auto Pistol was essentially the submachine gun of 40k. It's small, sprays a mass amount of small caliber bullets, has a max range only 30m shy of the HK-MP5, and actually weighs twice what the MP5 weighs. It seems like a submachine gun to me.

As for the rest, I have no answer. I have taken to only using weapons out of DH and generic weapons from IH. In my game, specific patterns with slightly different stats comes from a Good or Best quality version of the generic weapon (otherwise it'll be that one supper common pattern). It's up to the player to come up with the pattern name, stat tweaks they would like, and a brief background on the weapon explaining the stat tweaks. So, to your second question, sure, why not, but I just leave that up to my players and their creativity unless I make an NPC with some special gun or what-not.

As to your third question, I don't think so. I base my judgment off of DH pg 126. You might want to look there for a bit of enlightenment.

Generally speaking I agree with Graver. Use the autopistols for submachineguns. Maybe make a version have a range of 50m, twice the ammo capacity and use Basic (solid projectile) with a 2h grip.

I like snipers. It makes for clever gameplay with a lot of "information wins the fight". A simple long las with hot shot pack is an awesome sniper weapon. As are of course some of the exotic weapons. I've modified a sniper weapon from a boltgun taking inspiration from the spacemarine sternguard veterans of the tabletop game, (Kraken executor: range 150m, 1/-/-, 1D10+5 I, AP:6, mag 5, Accurate Tearing, uses only special fin-stabilised solid core longrange ammo that costs 30th each and does impact damage but ignores more armor, due to the explosives being swapped for more fuel). Or just use the Angelus boltgun. I've even built a "military sniper rifle" that in effect was a longlas with hot shot pack and I-damage. The autocannon works almost too well, it isn't "accurate", but it does damage enough anyway, and targets are often withing short range. If you want to be creative, do a toned down version of the Autocannon (3D10+5 maybe?) with only single shots and accurate, it would proxy the .50 sniper rifles pretty good I think. In some old necromunda sourcebook there was mentions of a shotgun ammo that was "long range smart targeting", used by Adeptus Arbites for sniper work. Use the plasma gun with any of the numerous houserules that are suggested on these forums. I hope you got inspired by some of all this rambling.

I share your thoughts about submachine guns. But to be honest, I simply would reduce the autogun with "compact". Although, I would leave the price rather untouched or would even lower it. Perhaps lowering the full-auto-bullet-number as well. 8 sounds fine. With a ammo clip about 16 or 22 rounds, perhaps.

The Creed-9 from IH is a SMG...clearly, just read the flavour text...

Graver said:

I would say that the Auto pistol is more like real world Machine Pistols like the Beretta M93R, Heckler & Koch VP70, Micro Uzi or Mac 11. Basically pistols with extended magazines and burst- and autofire capabilities.

Sub machine guns would be... Well autoguns with the compact upgrade. A real world sub machine gun is essentially an small machine gun/assault rifle with weaker calibre, meaning a compact machine gun. Hence compact autogun...

There are stats for autogun carbines in the edge of darkness adventure. There are a number of weapons in the IH that fall in the Submachinegun, or sniper rifle definition. Also any basic weapon with the accurate trait like the long las, and the nomad (IH) are sniper weapons. See the eratta on the FFG site for accurate weapon getting bonus damage for aiming.

Isn't one of the definitions of an SMG that it fires pistol ammo?

Therefore, the autopistol is the closest to an SMG in DH.

A compact autogun would be a carbine, as it would still fire rifle ammo.

depends on the submachine gun. See the AK74u, which is either a submachinegun, carbine, or compact assault rifle, depending on who you talk to.

As a side note, and autopistol is not a submachinegun since it does not have a stock.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

That's just an English naming convention. In other languages (German and Norwegian) the word is Machinenpistolen/maskinpistol, which translates directly as "machine pistol." And yes this is used for weapons such as the famous german WWII MP40 (which has a retractable stock) to the Scorpion (which has a folding stock but is still usually called a machine pistol in English).

Most machine pistols from RL (which the Autopistol is probably based off) also have either folding or detachable stocks (inlcuding the full auto Glocks) to help control recoil and improve aim.

Otherwise there is very little difference in these weapons. There are submachineguns which are small, compact and conconcealable, and there are large ones (such as the Thompson or PPSH-41 with wooden grips and often heavier than modern assault rifles (autoguns).

Varnias Tybalt: You point about Autopistols being essentially pistols with extended magazines and full-auto capabilities can pretty much be applied to most submachineguns as well. Most do fire pistol ammuntion, works by the almost the same mechanisms, but usually have limited range and accuracy.

RL is of course not always as clear cut and systematic as RPGs tries to be, so there will of course be weapons that have one foot in each category. An autopistol with improved range is an appropriate submachinegun, and a compact autogun is pretty much the same except it's much more expensvive (why does a smaller weapon cost more?), a bit longer range than a normal autopistol, and alot lighter!

Ok this post got windy and argumentative, but in the end I agree with those of you saying that a compact autogun does the work as a submachinegun very good. Some argue that autoguns fire rifle ammo, but a compact upgrade lowers damage so we can assume it uses a different (pistol) cartridge instead. It could use with a lower cost though, if it was built to be as a submachinegun from the get go. I'd probably just keep it at normal Autogun cost. Then again I never understand why a hold-out pistol should be more expensive than a normal pistol (stub automatic). If someone has a RL analogy on this I'd like to see it, but as far as I can tell hold outs, or compact pistols are cheaper than normal pistols.

Nigh7gaun7 said:

First: Why not? It produces a weapon that bridges the gap between the autopistol and the autogun.

Second: Sure.

Your last question was probably: "Can I find more Dark Heresy weapons anywhere?" Check out Dark Reign: www.darkreign40k.com/

-K

Friend of the Dork said:

Because it's Fun Sized! And as well all know, it costs a bit more to make things New, Improved, and More Compact with a Razor Edged Profile!

Seriously, on SMG's, there really is no one thing that defines them as they are, essentially a cross-over between two different things. They will sit at varying points on the cross-over spectrum. So, assuming that, an Autopistol as an SMG is valid (Like the Scorpion, I thought that was an SMG) as well as a compact autogun (like a thompson). Heck, once you compact an Autogun, it's stats will be eerily similar to the Autopistol except the Compact Autogun will be lighter by .75 kg, have 15m more to it's range, have a clip size 3 less then an Autopistol, and would have a higher rate of fire enabling it to blow through it's whole clip in 1.5 rounds. Oh, and it would be way more expensive. I think the greatest advantage it would have would be a slight increase in range, a more light weight design (how the hell that happens, I'm not sure) and a more robust fire selector. It just depends what flavor of SMG you want and what you consider an SMG to be I guess.

I just go with Autopistols as SMG because it's just easer; it's already sitting in a nice little table for my players and requires no additional stating or application of options from further in the book -it's already good to go as-is.

Graver said:

Fun sized? That's just silly. You could give it the unreliable quality for not being heavy enough . Seems I missed the part of reduced magazine capacity. This, combined with cost and dual wielding makes Autopistol alot better.

Pitol grip + ballistic gloves makes dualwiedling compact autoguns quite possible. Unfortunately some of the talents that improves the use of dualwielding ranged weapons are only useable for "pistols".