I have trouble with the Breaching Augur. Specifically, I keep trying to visualise it - or imagine its use as a weapon -, but to no avail. By its description, it seems to be an unholy cross between a tunnelling shield and a comical cone-shaped drill from a Saturday morning cartoon, strapped to a Marine's chest on a harness. I might be wrong, but it looks like four other marines need to hold the victim down (or a major industrial accident need to happen) for it to realistically hurt someone. Right now my players are firmly discouraged from bringing a piece of heavy mining equipment stolen from **** Dastardly's car to a hand-to-hand battle and expect it to work like a proper weapon, but sooner or later the siren song of those stats will get to them, and they will read the line in the description, where it says it can be implanted "as a cybernetic limb on a wounded Battle-Brother". So I have a few questions: Isn't "augur" normally a scanner in 40k? Does anyone have a picture? Is it a tabletop equipment option? Is it mentioned anywhere outside DW? What the heck is this thing?

Edit: Censorbot needs to learn the names of memorable cartoon antagonists.

I... actually am very curious about this too. I have no idea what a Breaching Augur is. But just from the sound of it, I'm thinking of a lance. Like, horse and knights type of a thing.

But I have no idea what it is.

I imagine the drill from Starcraft 2 just smaller in scale.

Is it mentioned anywhere outside DW? What the heck is this thing?

Human-sized version named "Breacher" is mentioned in DH Inquisitor's Handbook, p.135. There's even a picture .

Nice, thanks, it helped a lot. It's smaller and not as boxy as I imagined. Still, trying to hit people with an oversized power drill is just... wrong. My guys will have to try hard to get it, because I'll fight tooth and nail to keep it out of my games. Maybe on a servitor or a Techmarine's servo-harness, but not on a regular Astartes.

Make a house rule to better reflect its awkwardness in combat.

Your conversation got me curious, so I looked it up. It's basically as you say, a giant drill. Thing about drills is, they're only really powerful/dangerous on the point, provided you have leverage and backing.

Under ideal conditions, say a tank hull or a guy pinned between the tip and a wall, it would deal full damage. But in actual melee combat, I think glancing blows are incredibly more likely. I'd make it punishing. Like, only deals full damage on a natural 1% or only on doubles. Otherwise, the tip doesn't plant and the speed of the augur catches the opponent and throws them X meters to the left or something. Say that if you fail the attack roll on a double, the tip catches and the speed goes to you, lifting you off your feet and throwing the hapless character X number of meters.

Basically, make it so that sure, they can get that damage and penetration they're drooling over, but in order to do so, they need to wrestle the opponent down and hold them still so they can use it to full effect.

Drills are hard enough to use on metal screws, can't imagine how much harder it would be to core a hole if the object was actively trying not to get ventilated.

The weapon should actually be called a Breaching Auger , not a Breaching Augur . The former refers to drills while the latter refers to divination, but GW has confused the two spellings on multiple occasions and thus I'm guessing FFG just went along for the ride.

On the topic of silliness, I've honestly seen weirder things in 40K. Catching might be an issue for this weapon, but like any weapon primarily intended to pierce (such as the Power Lance!) you'd have to aim it for concave spots. It's a recognized drawback to that class of weapons, in return for the ability to get a deep wound if you hit a vulnerable spot. But in any case I doubt that a power weapon (this thing has Power Field) would have too much issue cutting through armor, and once you break through the spalling can be vicious.

Thank you. Apparently the obscure word of the day is the auger .

You also have a point with power field. Best not make houserules on this, because if the group starts to debate why a tool covered in a field which destroys molecular bonds needs to vibrate and rotate, my mind will fry. Power fists are A-OK, because punching out tanks , but the Rule of Cool cannot be stretched enough to cover this.

It already has unbalanced and unwieldy right? The only thing I'd do to change that is add a quality that makes it deal half damage if you have less than 3 DoS

Sorry for the necro

It's not really an issue for me these days. I was thinking that it was a traditional drill shape, like the DH one, or that are one some tech priests servo gear. But now, with Dreadnoughts and Centurions using a siege drills I figure it smaller version of that and those things look much easier to use.

To get old git on you originally chain fists were described as the chain being driven by the powerfield itself, and I kind of see these drills working the same way. My head cannon is that that it's creating combination of spinning powerfields which sounds delightfully destructive.

Sounds like.... TECH HERESY! QUICK DRAG THIS MAN INTO THE NEAREST RECYCLING FACILITY!

Errr, I mean, it works by the Omnissiah's blessing and the correct incatations and rituals..

The description of the weapon leads me to think it isn't a first choice combat weapon. So I slapped a -20 penalty to hit on it. The killteam still took one, as they saw a need for an effective breaching tool, not a broken combat weapon.