That's what I think should be changed in FFG systems. It seems strange that the same skill that makes you a good shooter can make you a close combat beast with pistols. I don't think that good aim has anything to do with hitting your opponent when he's right in front of you. I think that reflexes and martial arts are much more significant. Maybe someone does martial arts and can say how it works with guns in a real world?

If you consider rules it seems strange that good shooter can shoot the **** out of good melee fighter in close combat. If you're gonna do well in close combat with two pistols and high Ballistic Skill than why bother with WS? Also, you have to buy a talent to attack multiple times with a melee weapon and you got this for free when fighting with pistols. I think that's the reason why there's not much melee fighting guardsmen around. I just can't think of a reason why it should be kept this way.

That's why I'm asking you what you think about it and leave a comment below.

Using ranged weapons in melee has some trade-offs, namely you have to use pistols and you don't get bonuses for range when in melee combat. So while it is entirely possible for someone with pistols to do well in melee combat, they would have to spend a significant amount of XP to do so and the build would pretty much be invalid past 50 meters.

I don't think so. If the talent enhances how the pistol work in cc, it also enhances how the other ranged weapons work outside of it (with an exception of two weapon fighting talents ofc). It doesn't work the same way for melee weapons.

If the talent enhances how the pistol work in cc

Which talent, in specific?

I think that's the reason why there's not much melee fighting guardsmen around.

Besides melee focus being a perfectly viable combat build if you have a way to reliably get into CC range and decent luck at rolls:

The laspistol, for example, does d10+2 damage with no penetration, with at maximum four shots per turn, unless you're dual wielding it, in which that becomes eight shots maximum, but with a hefty penalty to BS tests (-20 to one hand, -40 to the other). You also have no way to avoid attacks in CC besides dodging. The bolt pistol gets d10+5, with Tearing and Pen 4, but you aren't going to get one of those without playing a Commissar.

A standard chainsword starts with d10+5 (assuming 30+ Strength) and 2 Pen, with two attacks per turn (a standard attack is a Half Action), and it gets Tearing and Balanced. There's also nothing stopping a chainsword-user from holding a laspistol in their off-hand if they get a sudden urge to shoot anything.

If the talent enhances how the pistol work in cc

Which talent, in specific?

I think that's the reason why there's not much melee fighting guardsmen around.

Besides melee focus being a perfectly viable combat build if you have a way to reliably get into CC range and decent luck at rolls:

The laspistol, for example, does d10+2 damage with no penetration, with at maximum four shots per turn, unless you're dual wielding it, in which that becomes eight shots maximum, but with a hefty penalty to BS tests (-20 to one hand, -40 to the other). You also have no way to avoid attacks in CC besides dodging. The bolt pistol gets d10+5, with Tearing and Pen 4, but you aren't going to get one of those without playing a Commissar.

A standard chainsword starts with d10+5 (assuming 30+ Strength) and 2 Pen, with two attacks per turn (a standard attack is a Half Action), and it gets Tearing and Balanced. There's also nothing stopping a chainsword-user from holding a laspistol in their off-hand if they get a sudden urge to shoot anything.

Laspistol is S/2/-, so maximum you could only get two shots off if you were using a single pistol. A second would pump that up to four shots, but that's assuming you've spent all the XP necessary for Ambidextrous/TWW/Gunslinger to make it +0/+0 for each hand. While that is great in melee combat or very close range, this becomes less useful when you leave the laspistol's Short Range - 25m. Do you net benefit if you sink a lot of XP into BS? Of course. The return on dual-wielding pistols? Not so much.

The benefit of using melee weapons is that they aren't bound by RoF restrictions - if you are rolling under a 70 for Lightning Attack and you roll a 1, that's 7 hits regardless of the weapon. The bonus damage from your Strength Bonus is a heft plus as well. Then, if you have a high WS, Parry is a great way to stop shots in melee, especially with the Counterattack talent.

First thing I did when we started playing 40k rpg was houserule that pistols fired in melee used weaponskill.

In my mind the ability fire shots downrange taking into account lead, range etc is an entirely different skillset to wrestling a pistol into guys face and pulling the trigger.

The rules for using a pistol in melee aren't a good as a guys specialised me melee using a melee weapon. But that melee specialist is infinately worse at a range of more than a few meters.

Unless built correctly, in which case they can cover the normal engagement range in some 3-4 turns, imposing a -40 penalty to all ballistic skill tests made to hit them, before taking situational modifiers into account. Melee specialists are goddamn dangerous.

Power Weapon. Your dual auto pistol welding beast is now impotent. No pistol can have a power field so parry once and the weapon is gone. If it is a Melee specialist then they should have a second parry for the other gun as well. Also melee specialists should generally have a higher Toughness and better armour. Back in DH it was stupid powerful, now not so much. Have him go up against an ork. The guns do less damage per hit and have to be reloaded when empty. There are plenty of reasons not to engage Melee with guns.

However I just don't allow it. If you want to use them as improvised melee weapons fine. But no shooting while engaged in melee (I do allow one last burst beforehand as a panic shot).

Power Weapon.

Dodge.

Unless built correctly, in which case they can cover the normal engagement range in some 3-4 turns, imposing a -40 penalty to all ballistic skill tests made to hit them, before taking situational modifiers into account. Melee specialists are goddamn dangerous.

IF they can reach the enemy, IF they have Hard Target talent. IF the enemy is not laying surpressing fire all around the battlefield.

First thing I did when we started playing 40k rpg was houserule that pistols fired in melee used weaponskill.

In my mind the ability fire shots downrange taking into account lead, range etc is an entirely different skillset to wrestling a pistol into guys face and pulling the trigger.

The rules for using a pistol in melee aren't a good as a guys specialised me melee using a melee weapon. But that melee specialist is infinately worse at a range of more than a few meters.

That's what I'm saying. RAW can create a situation in which sniper is cc beast with a single laspistol only because he has Las Weapon Mastery Talent or similar ones. Suddenly they can outsmart and outreflex even the deadliest alien brawlers. That just doesn't make any sense.

If the talent enhances how the pistol work in cc

Which talent, in specific?

Las Weapon Volley, Expertise and Mastery. All you need to have with it is high BS, forget about WS. You get +3 or more bonus damage and impose up to -30 Dodge penalty upon enemy.

But in that case you've spent quite a bit of XP just increasing BS and buying those talents (which are good, but not game-ruining) to get that sort of advantage.

The example we are using is a single laspistol, correct? Lets say you are in melee combat with a Severan Dominate soldier, and that you have a BS of 45 (you've sunk a good amount of XP into getting it there).

Keep in mind a laspistol's rate of fire is S/2/-. So, if you are shooting semi-auto, the maximum amount of shots you could fire is two. If you rolled a 1 out of 60, that is still only two shots.

With Lasgun Expertise, you inflict a -5 penalty to Dodge for every DoS you get, to a maximum of -30. So with a BS of 45, the best you could do is -20 on semi-auto. That would be if you rolled a 5, by the way.

With Lasgun Volley, if you have a comrade in cohesion (which may not always be the case) you get +1 damage if you used the Ranged Volley Order.

With Lasgun Mastery, you get +1 damage for every other DoS beyond the first. If you are rolling under a 45, that means you could max get +2 damage.

You didn't include Lasgun Barrage, but I will list it here: With Lasgun Barrage, you get one additional DoS. Semi-auto means a shot every other DoS, so you would need two DoS for that talent to give you that second shot. Meaning, you would have to roll under a 35 to get three DoS with Lasgun Volley. That's about average for a human to shoot.

If you are rolling up a character you are statistically most likely to get about 32 or so. Maybe more, maybe less, but I will give the benefit of the doubt and say you begin with 35. The cost to get those four talents and your BS up to 45 would be 1650 XP assuming you have the Ballistic Skill, Offence, and Finesse aptitudes. Say you don't have Finesse as an aptitude, the cost for you is 2050 XP.

So yeah, you could do a bit more damage or make dodging a bit harder when you use a laspistol in melee. What about your Dodge? What happens when you get hit? Or Suppressed? Or have to talk to the Commissar? Or are disarmed? The problem with min/maxing for specific situations like this is that it makes you vulnerable in every other situation that doesn't call for your one, good, skill.

The issue with Power Weapons in this scenario is not on the offence but on the defense. If they parry you shooting them in melee they destroy the gun (well 75% chance destroy the gun). Generally melee should be in the favor of the melee specialist, you can certainly take abilities that help even out the score but in the end it probably wont go so well for you.

@ Commediante

I may have my opinion on how it should be but that does not mean I will not look at the issue from another angle. I am a firm believer in the rule of cool. That is if you describe something cool then you can probably do it. (Had a character once slam a combat shotgun into a daemonette's stomach and open fire. Yes I had to use WS)

Wait, can you even parry pistol shots in melee combat? I don't think you can.

Pistol fighting in melee is balanced, it will never reach the power of the lightning attacking ******* with a Hellblade or whatever. OTOH, getting there can be a problem...

Have I lost my mind, or can't you only fire single shot when firing in hand to hand. Both semi-auto and full auto have the ranged sub-type.

I've always allowed parrying pistols in combat, reasoning that they are knocking the pistol asside, rather than the bullet. If you can parry a powersword without fear of reprisal, then you can also parry a pistol that's a meter away from you. I'll admit the rules I found are vague. However, it does help balance that good ranged fighter getting that one good shot by having the melee ninja being able to use their his WS to parry it.

You also have no way to avoid attacks in CC besides dodging.

Are pistols by default unwieldy? Is there some rule that I missed that says you can't parry with them?

Are pistols by default unwieldy? Is there some rule that I missed that says you can't parry with them?

From page 252, on two-weapon fighting.

• If the character is wielding at least one melee weapon, he may use the Parry Skill to perform an Evasion Reaction once each Round as normal with this weapon, though he still may not Evade more than once in a Round.

You can't use your Evasion Reaction to parry unless you're wielding at least one melee weapon.

At least, that's how I read it.

Granted, it only applies for dual-wielding weapons (assuming if you're in CC and not dual-wielding that you've got a melee weapon), and even then only if you're wielding two pistols instead of, say, a pistol + melee weapon.

Funny because the text for the parry skill says you can do it with your bare hands! (Pg. 129 - "Parry is the ability to block blows in melee, deflecting them using one’s hands or weapons.") So assumingly you can parry when you're only holding one pistol... Pushing it further, you could say your pistols are improvised weapons and thus are unbalanced...