Is this a joke? Hellgun is better that boltgun? Are they serious???

I think this might be a result of the latest Imperial Guard codex.

Stormtroopers used to be armed with Hellguns in the previous codex, but now they have something called a "Hot Shot Lasgun", which I believe is the new GW monicker for a Hellgun and it has an AP of 3, meaning that it could punch through power armour in the table top.

The old hellguns that Imperial Stormtroopers had were NOT that good before...

I still don't understand.

Availability is the same. All other stats are the same - even weight is the same. Boltgun has very rare availability, but by all means it is inferior (why someone will want to change hellgun for boltgun?)

Mrakvampire said:

I'm at work and still unfamiliar with the RT book, so I'll contribute but bear in mind that this is based on the TableTop game and not the RPGs.

A boltgun can inflict more damage than a Hellgun AND has longer range. It also doesn't require a backpack powersource to function.

The Boltgun still wins out in versatility, I would say, though a Hellgun would be better against heavily armoured opponents. I'm hoping to see "Sternguard" type ammunition for the bolter in future supplements - that would even the field a bit.

Mrakvampire said:

The only way I could see it is by the Tearing factor, and full automatic fire.

The only way I could see it is by the Tearing factor, and full automatic fire.

Sounds about right - Tearing ups the damage by two points on average and almost doubles your RF chance. And Full Auto is quite powerful indeed.

The point I would claw myself into in order to keep the universe a little more consistent is the "Lucius Pattern" and the appley heavy backpack. Those seen in IH are "Voss Pattern" and do not come with this encumbersome packpack. The text on p.119 for this weapon entry makes it clear that even the pistole comes with a 10kg backpack.

This explains to me the higher Pen quiet nicely... and gives me another reason why I would favour a bolt pistole as a sidearm instead! Gesh, this ruins your looks!

Anyway, the MarineFanBoys will cry alot...and somehow I see Marines with Lucius pattern Laserweapons as TT-Miniatures pretty soon... at the very beginning, the Marines had Laser Weapons as well...

Hot Shot Lasguns are actually older than the Hellguns in the fluff...

Tearing also increases your chances of Righteous Fury. And Boltguns got nice new ammo choices, a train which Las weapons missed entirely.

Also, these still aren't Astartes Boltguns, which do 2d10 damage with 5 Pen.

Still, I don't understand such changes. Ammo cost far more less for hellgun than for boltgun, availability is Rare vs. Very Rare... Clearly unbalanced.

Mrakvampire said:

Well, you don't have to pay for ammo for Rogue Traders, it's miniscule compared to their fortunes!

As well, are you encountering a lot of power armoured people around or general seven armour and above?

Pen 7 is good not only vs. heavy armored targets, but also for targets behind cover. And yes, I think that Pen 7 vs Pen 4 is better than +1 damage, tearing and full auto in most cases.

It also could be an error & the penetration could be less...

If there are stats for the same weapon in Dark Heresy you could check there!

L

In that case you (and your guys) will pretty soon stick to the Lucius Pattern Hellguns. But still, I wouldn´t be caught dead wearing one outside a battlefield.

For a non-RT-game, I wouldn´t try these babies either. While having two spare clips for a Boltpistole (or Boltgun) with you might not be as "lofty" as having to clips of manstopper ammo. But try to imagine to carry arround two extra backpacks for your Lucius Pattern Hellgun. Or worse, your Lucius Pattern Hell PISTOLE.

Sure, there are extra large back packs. But they are set costly that even the RT-systems considers them "seperate buy". I think to be able to really compare these to a bolter, one would have to know the DH stats for this. Which we won´t for any time soon.

What strikes me more is not the comparison to a bolter, but to a plasma weapon. This little Lucius thingis must be freakish advanced in Technology.

For an individual, nothing in the Rare/Very Rare bracket is at all hard to get in RT. Pen 7 is "better" vs high armor, but Tearing and more base damage is way better against high Toughness. Except that the 3 point difference in Pen. is made up for by the 3 point boost in average damage in this case. Add Full Auto and you are simply, in terms of game mechanics, wrong.

(The weapons aren't actually the same as the DH ones- all the RT weapons are branded with a specific pattern and vary at least slightly, ie one more Pen. on the "Mezoa Pattern" Power Fist).

Hellguns in Dark Heresy were Pen 3, and even the special Forge World variety was only Pen 4, so I suspect this is a typo.

schoon said:

For sure, but said Hellguns did not came with a 10kg backpack for "standard ammonition requierement" but where feed with a handy e-cell. I assume it to be quiet possible that this one is not a typo.

Sounds more like an update to make them the same as the ones in the TT. But no, they aren't as good as Bolters. The two are about equal vs targets with high armour (the tearing and extra damage cancelling out the Hellguns extra Pen), with maybe a slight advantage going to the Bolter (cause of full auto), while the bolter is clearly superior against anything with armour lighter than 7. Against an unarmoured opponent a single shot from a bolter will do 12.5 damage, a Hellgun 9.5.

It's not a typo as the digi version has pen 7 as well (p128)

At the moment I'm trying to work out why have a Fractal blade or a ghost sword over a normal power sword, apart from as a status symbol

ema nymton said:

They have more Pen., but once again, the difference in average damage is such that either would do less actual damage against a given target than the Power Sword.

schoon said:

But between IH and RT Rulebook one very important thing happened. Imperial Guard Codex happened (I´ve already increased Voss pattern´s penetration to 6 for my players, so little adjustament to 7 wouldn´t be problem) and as IG fanboy I´m happy as Pilgrim of Hayte during Bloddy Solstice of Malfi:D

Mrakvampire said:

The boltgun only has 2 less pen (if you count the +1 more damage) and has the tearing feature. Also on full auto a boltgun can hit up to 4 times whereas a hellgun could only hit up to 2 on semi.

Cheddah said:

Plus the fact the Hellgun has a high Pen isn't that great- even most RT characters will only be wandering around in Best Flak or Carapace, so 2 points of the Pen will go to waste. Add to that that most of the enemies you'll be fighting will be either mooks in flak or xenos in mesh who will lose all their armour to a boltgun anyway, or beasts or daemons with no armour and Unnatural Toughness against who the Pen has no effect at all.

I actually did up an excel spreadsheet just to lay out all the weapons and compare them, relative to the stats the guns had in 40K.

Hellguns do less damage (RT 1d10+4 vs. 1d10+5, Tearing, 40K: S3 vs S4) but have better penetration (Pen 7 vs. Pen 4, 40K AP3 vs. AP5). This is in line with the 40K comparisons (Flak Armor gave 4 Armor Points or 5+ in 40K, Carapace gave 6 AP or 4+, Power Armour gave 8 AP or 3+).

So it appears armor values go up by 2 for every 1 point they get better in 40K.

As previously posted, the HUGE difference between DH and RT was that the 5th edition Codex for Imperial Guard was released, where storm troopers with their hellguns went from S3AP5 to S3AP3, meaning their guns all of a sudden kicked butt, assuming you could wound your target.

My issue with the weapon stats is with flamers and plasma.

Flamers were S4, AP5 (similar damage and pen to bolters) and were template driven. So why is their RT damage equal to the hellgun (S3 weapon) and their Pen only 2? (Equal to AP6?). In my game, I've changed Standard flamers to be 1d10+5 AP 4, just to keep the damage and Pen where I feel they ought to be. On one hand, they still don't do as much damage as a bolter because they don't have tearing, but they do have Flame, so I think it balances out a bit.

Heavy Flamers (S5 AP4) were 2d10+4, Pen 4. That damage put them on par with Krak Grenades (2d10+4, Pen 6) which in 40K are S6AP4. So I've downed their damage to 2d10+2 Pen 6 which is almost identical to the Heavy Bolter, which is on par with the 40K stats.

Plasma.

1d10+6, Pen 6? Really? For Terminator killers? In 40K, A plasma anything hitting a terminator wounds on 2+ with their invulnerable save only. Devastating. I think the stats in RT for plasma are... wussy?

Based on the aforementioned Krak Grenade, compared to Melta weapons, and the armour value for power armour, I've changed plasma pistols to be 2d10+6, Pen 9 . Huge, HUGE difference. I've also increased their chance to overheat to 85%+, just like rolling a '1' on d6. IMO, Plasma anything is almost archaeotech in itself. Everything fluff-wise that I've read indicates that plasma is barely understood and extremely rare. So it doesn't make sense to me, stat-wise or fluff-wise, that Plasma does +2 points of damage and -1 (!!!) Pen versus Hellguns.

OP

WHAT KIND OF NECROMANCY IS THIS!?

=P