Gear up!

By Professor Tanhauser, in Deathwatch

What kind of gear do you recommend for KT forces in general and in a few specific cases if you wish to specify some?

You know in general i think a clip of kraken rounds and a clip of metal storm rounds are often a good buy. A humble bolter equipped with a fire selector and a clip of standard, kraken and metalstorm rounds becomes a very versatile weapon effective under many conditions. (BTW the cost of kraken clips was errata'ed up to 15 req. Sorry.)

The metal storm rounds make it potent against hordes and small concentrations of lightly armored rabble. The krakens make iteffective against even CSM filth and light to moderate vehicles . Plus the greater range makes it a fine sniping weapon, especially if you can get a scope. Best of all even a FNG tac marine who just fell off the turnip barge can usually get all of the above in almost every mission.

An assault Marine might want to lay out 2 points for a fire selector on his bolt pistol and 15 for metalstorm rounds. Again the metalstorm rounds are more effective on hordes. Plus the nice thing about a pistol with a fire selector is you don't have to ask the enemy to kindly give you a moment to reload when you're up close and personal with him. If you think you'll be taking on traior legions, necrons or monstrous 'nids krakens may be a better buy.

So what gear do you generally favor?

A KT should tailor their gear for the target at hand. Facing Tyranids? Heavy Bolter with Hellfire. Tau? Get a Plasma Gun and some Kraken Rounds.

If you mean personal preference, I've always been partial to the meltagun, as most encounters tend to happen at short range (>100m) and at close quarters there is no better bang for your buck. Beyond that, the Storm Bolter is the go-to weapon for Tactical Marines, Devastators should go either Heavy Bolters or the always practical Autocannon, Assault Marines need their Power Weapons, the bigger the better I myself prefer Axes to Swords as the Parry skill does not exist in Deathwatch and you can always just Dodge in melee, and Techmarines should aim for either a Plasma or Meltagun because of that juicy Weapon Tech bonus.

I agree you should tailor your weapons to the target. However your target will be based on briefings and intel, and how often do you end up facing unexpected challenges? Like most every mission I imagine.

So you have to accept you'll probably be facing something other than what you were told to expect, and plan wisely. As I said, a standard bolter with fire select and 3 different clips can go a long way towards dealing with unexpected complications. The basic standard/kraken/metalstorm loadout can be useful against a lot of enemies. While maybe not as effective against tyranids as hellfire rounds, kraken wo0ulnd can hurt major 'nids by overcoming their armor mostly, and metalstorm can be useful against hordes of lesser beasts.

Now yes if you know you're facing nids go with hellfire. if they turn up, your standard multipurpose loadout is still not useless.

I can see other rounds being useful in some missions. Like, say, you are ordered to go and deal with the "mist reaper" from The achilles assault and, preferably, bring it back alive I would recommend implosion rounds. Why? Remember successful hits reduce a target's agility by 1d5 points. The mist reaper can survive numerous hits from a regular bolter loaded with implosion, and enough hits can really degrade it's agility while leaving it still alive if wounded. Reduce it's agility enough and you make it easier to capture. As to house ruling, if a KT member was ordered to try to bring in a major tyranid alive and specifically said he aimed for the legs with an implosion round with the intent of reducing it's agility as much as possible, i'd likely reward his good thinking and roleplaying by making such a hit, if successful, treat the agility damage as 'tearing', in that it rolled twice and kept the highest.

A missile launcher is always a useful weapon given it's versatile nature, plus it's FNG approved and cheap too.

A scope can be useful for a lot of marines. While many marines may consider engaging at range to be "unmanly" remember that many creatures excel at melee combat and being able to engage them at range will nullify their main advantage while maximizing your chance to succeed and to survive to fight another day. Bolters with kraken rounds and scopes are a pretty wise way of dealing with genestealers, hormagaunts and other creatures which are extremely deadly in melee combat but are harmless at range.

A heavy bolter is fairly versatile with special ammo clips. too bad a dev with HB doesn't get a 'free' special ammo clip like a tac marine.

There is gear besides weapons, too. A tech marine should have an auspex and use it wisely.


A KT should tailor their gear for the target at hand. Facing Tyranids? Heavy Bolter with Hellfire. Tau? Get a Plasma Gun and some Kraken Rounds.

If you mean personal preference, I've always been partial to the meltagun, as most encounters tend to happen at short range (>100m) and at close quarters there is no better bang for your buck. Beyond that, the Storm Bolter is the go-to weapon for Tactical Marines, Devastators should go either Heavy Bolters or the always practical Autocannon, Assault Marines need their Power Weapons, the bigger the better I myself prefer Axes to Swords as the Parry skill does not exist in Deathwatch and you can always just Dodge in melee, and Techmarines should aim for either a Plasma or Meltagun because of that juicy Weapon Tech bonus.

Yes, I think I'll give my techmarine a combi bolter with melta or plasma whenever i can. Someone here told me the attachment weapon on a combi bolter can in fact be reloaded with a single shot clip, so that makes it more attractive tho I wonder what one shot plasma, melta or flamer reloads cost and weigh.

I think a combi bolter can take a fire selector and 3 clips, but it's going to get bulky ans heavy. Thank god for power armor strength bonus. Then again you can swap clips you know...

Last will and testament, change of underwear and socks, forwarding address for the players corpse...

Last will and testament, change of underwear and socks, forwarding address for the players corpse...

I do hopeyou meant to say "Character's corpse". Players are hard enough to find as is without killing any, tho I can occasionallly sympathize with the urge to.....

Edited by Professor Tanhauser

Last will and testament, change of underwear and socks, forwarding address for the players corpse...

I do hopeyou meant to say "Character's corpse". Players are hard enough to find as is without killing any, tho I can occasionallly sympathize with the urge to.....

I was correct the first time. :)

A clip of hellfire rounds is a good choice for the tactical marine's free special clip. It's great against hordes, it's great against normal enemies, and it's just fantastic against tyranids.

Fire selectors are insanely cheap for their benefit.

Jump packs add so much mobility when a killteam all take them.

I always take combat webbing. It helps me justify carrying all of the other stuff. ;)

I agree that hellfire is a good generic clip. I just personally see it as reserved for tyranids. Metalstorm is more of a general purpose area effect round. I mean there's no actual rule limiting hellfire to anti nid missions, but it must be a limited production item or all anti nid imperial forces would have it.

Trying to play in the game's ''reality'' (I know that word shouldn't be used to describe anything 40k related...) is just how I do it.

Another round\character combo i think is good is kraken\ techmarine. Given weapon tech ability and a kraken's high AP it can allow a techmarine to threaten moderate armor once per battle. Nothing like having that chaos terminator, killa kan, crisis suit, etc, crippled or stopped by a few bolter shots.

Edited by Professor Tanhauser

I agree that hellfire is a good generic clip. I just personally see it as reserved for tyranids. Metalstorm is more of a general purpose area effect round. I mean there's no actual rule limiting hellfire to anti nid missions, but it must be a limited production item or all anti nid imperial forces would have it.

Trying to play in the game's ''reality'' (I know that word shouldn't be used to describe anything 40k related...) is just how I do it.

Another round\character combo i think is good is kraken\ techmarine. Given weapon tech ability and a kraken's high AP it can allow a techmarine to threaten moderate armor once per battle. Nothing like having that chaos terminator, killa kan, crisis suit, etc, crippled or stopped by a few bolter shots.

While Hellfire rounds were originally designed for fighting Tyranids, I doubt a Deathwatch marine would be denied them if he had a decent argument for why he believes they'd be useful on a mission. The overall amounts and quality of gear they receive is staggering compared to even veterans in their home chapters.

That would be a good combination but I'm pretty certain weapon-tech doesn't improve bolt weapons. Energy weapons and weapon-tech are devastating though, e.g. the Barrage Plasma Gun on full-auto.

oh you're right about weapon tech. That's why he takes a combi weapon with plasma or melta. The weapon tech will affect that.

oh you're right about weapon tech. That's why he takes a combi weapon with plasma or melta. The weapon tech will affect that.

Ah! I missed the "once per battle" bit. ;)

yeah, it kinda made combi weapons and weapon tech dovetail. So yeah you get one shot per battle bht adding like 4 to AP and Dam makes that shot count.

According to some brother here tho, you can buy reloads for a combi weapon....

yeah, it kinda made combi weapons and weapon tech dovetail. So yeah you get one shot per battle bht adding like 4 to AP and Dam makes that shot count.

According to some brother here tho, you can buy reloads for a combi weapon....

I've experimented with house rules giving the second weapon in combi-weapons more shots. For example, three shots for a combi-plas means a maximal shot is possible.

As for reloads, afaik those are legal in standard Deathwatch.

Yeah, i'm just damned if I can find the weight, cost and req for combi reloads. As to a plasma combi I just assumed a combi plasma could not fire maximal, part of the cost of getting a compact version.

One idea I had was to make an alternative combi weapon that took a bolter and put a pistol sized version of a melta, plasma or flamer under the barrel that had normal stats.

Edited by Professor Tanhauser

Well,

1) "should it be important to know how much ammunition weighs, consider a weapon’s full clip to be 10% of the weapon’s total weight." Corebook, p.158

2) AFAIR you wouldn't find it in any of DW books, but DH Ascension says: "The primary weapon retains its statistics—rate of fire, ammo capacity, and so forth—while the secondary weapon has its clip size reduced to one and its rate of fire becomes S/–/–. The weight of the new, combined weapon is equal to the weight of the primary weapon plus half the weight of the secondary weapon." , so clip for secondary weapon is 5% of the unmodified weapon weight.

3) On the same Corebook p.158 you can find table 5-10: Ammunition. Req N/A for all, Renown "-" or "varies", and I have already cited to you Errata quote about standard ammunition.

Edited by Jargal

Well, thank you. I wonder of FFG realizes a lot of people financially can't buy all their books. It might be nice for them to print things like in a universal errata section.

BTW, as to acombi weapon ammo on 158, yes, and I assumed it meant the standard ammo for the bolter.

One thing about the combi weapon that wasn't too clear in DW was is it physically capable of firing more than one shot? Was there something about it that limited it to one shot only? being so small did it burn out when fired? Did it have to cool off for like several minutes? I'd initially assumed it was essentially a once per battle deal. Ok so that was a false assumption.

Edited by Professor Tanhauser

One thing about the combi weapon that wasn't too clear in DW was is it physically capable of firing more than one shot? Was there something about it that limited it to one shot only?

Counstruction? "Astartes combi-weapons typically use a boltgun as the primary weapon with a one-shot secondary weapon slung under the barrel. " - just as M76/203 or GP25/30.

Yeah, that could be where i got my idea from. Plus things like digital weapons are stated as to being reloadable but taking a very long time to do so. Again, confusion enters the pic when you see they have an ammo capacity, even if it is one.


BTW, anyone think it's funny how the jokaero are aliens, and therefore bad, but my oh my! Don't the imperium's grand high poobah's just line up to get those little jokaero digital weapons? Inquisitors, nobles, high ranking military of all branches, spire lords, assassins, rogue traders and even - Dare I say? - some space marines !

I do declare, you'd think that some things crafted be xenos filth were actually...... good , given the fact that some xenos weapons adorn the fingers of some of the highest and mightiest in the imperium. Heavens! What would the emperor say?!

Edited by Professor Tanhauser

I do declare, you'd think that some things crafted be xenos filth were actually...... good , given the fact that some xenos weapons adorn the fingers of some of the highest and mightiest in the imperium. Heavens! What would the emperor say?!

"We could have made better than that you know if the Imperium hadn't gone to hell?"

If he saw the Imperium as it is now he would probably be sick. His great vision was the Imperial Truth, unifying human worlds and banishing the falsehood of religion, superstition and faith to replace with the purity of science, reason, mathematics and progress. He never wanted to be hailed as a god and despite his power and wisdom just wished to be regarded as a learned and powerful man.

The thing is though, the Emperor according to some sources wasn't overly anti-xenos and it was when the nutters of the Imperium twisted his plan into the Imperial Creed and the nature of the Emperor as a deity that the Inquisition kicked into gear and made them so anti-xenos. In fact it's suggested that he elieved that mankind should become the dominant force in the galaxy but that the dark force of Chaos needed to be removed. Nowhere did it necessarily say "kill all aliens" to achieve that. From what he'd seen of the existing races during the Crusades some would be a threat to his great plans like the Orks and yes they did need to go because there's no reasoning with them. I think the Jokaero actually capitulated during the crusades or at the very least were non threatening enough to be integrated much like squats are. It's actually theorised, and I would see it as working, that if the Emperor did return that he wouldn't be opposed to negotiating with the less openly hostile races such as the Eldar and Tau, two factions who would be actually willing to discuss for their own reasons. It's an interesting thought...

Yes though, Xenos tech IS better than Imperium in some regards. The Necron gauss weapon is one of the most dangerous man portable weapons ever. It's like the old meme:

Necrons - Our most basic gun can wreck your most advanced tank. In one shot. This is fair and legal."

Their FTL travel is using Inertialess drives, a far less risky method of transport than the warp. Eldar technology is just as potent, powered by their individual psychic abilities and is quite dangerous to see the use of grav tanks or wraithlords striding across the field. Tau tech is constantly evolving and developing, their empire expands, railguns and battlesuits get tougher and are able to fight progressively tougher wars and so in all this the Imperium is stagnant.

The Imperium does not develop new weaponry or technology, it can't and is mostly forbidden to do so. Instead existing kit is copied and repaired as best as possible but there is no innovation. If that template is lost or a forge for a specific part then nobody has the knowledge to replace or rebuild it. They are reliant on finding relics of their past so while they have some good stuff it's the same stuff and they cannot change without finding bits of their old equipment. They are powerful but they are not innovative like the other races and this is why people use xenos tech.

And on that note I need to be whipped for my wrongdoing for a few hours by one of my Canoness' units for even suggesting the above and that he was not a god. Oh what a shame...

Edited by Calgor Grim

most of what you say is true my pleasant little xenos filth friend, but one must admit the imperium, or at least the adeptus mechanicus, came up with hellfire acid not too long after the 'nids showed up.

most of what you say is true my pleasant little xenos filth friend, but one must admit the imperium, or at least the adeptus mechanicus, came up with hellfire acid not too long after the 'nids showed up.

I always love these back and forth sessions you know. One advancement does not a progressive Imperium make.

Anyway, if Imperium tech was the best ever, why would the Inquisition ever make use of Xeno tech such as C'tan phase swords or tesseract labyrinth? :)

what you said was mostly true. It does seem now and then someone in the imperium does invent something new. Not often

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Vortex grenades for every new recrute!