Is it just me or are these things too good to be true.

A free attack every round. With a basic weapon if you want.

To get an extra attack with talents takes Ambidextrous and Two-Weapon Wielder. And even then you still have a penalty. And you can only use pistols.

Even mechadendrites that attack use your reaction for the round. And these are the tool-of-choise for the guys who make all the tech in the Imperium.

Plus the idea that you can just balance a bolter on your shoulder and have it firing at stuff without any penalties just seems silly (and silly for 40K is pretty damned silly).

Am I alone?

Nothing is broken in 40K roleplay. The system is just full of special features. I say, enjoy it.

voidstate said:

Nope, not alone. They seem unbalanced in more ways than one.

One of my players spotted those **** things straight away. I agree they seem dicey, he came to the table with a shirken pistol hooked up to his and tried to claim he was walking around town with it on.

I've stamped on that, but not yet ruled firmly on exactly what they can do - at the moment I've limited them to compact laspistols, but am considering a more radical adjustment of them.

It gets worse. Look at a good quality mind impulse unit:

Good models grant a +10 bonus ... for ... Ballistic skill tests when interfaced with MIU systems.

So when your players get a good MIU system they might realise that this gives them a +10 bonus to the weapon.

I've already told my players that it's pistols only (shoulder mounting anything larger strains credibility). If it becomes a problem I'll either mount them on lots of enemies or further restrict them (compact or single shot only are restrictions I'm considering).

Remember, however, that it is still a standard attack, it's just counted as a free action. You can still only do one attack per round, so it just means you can do other stuff as well as shoot, or aim well, but it still just means you have a free half-action that would normally be used by shooting.

The description even says it's worse than the mechanicus equivalent. Presumably this means the mechadendrite... but they at least use a character's reaction for the round while the MIU doesn't.

My house rule would be that:

- Only pistols can be mounted on a MIU
- it uses either a half action or a reaction to fire a MIU
- Without Two-Weapon Wielder (Ballistic) you cannot fire your MIU and make any other kind of attack in a turn
- The standard (-10) off-hand penalty applies (except for Good-quality MIUs which have no penalty)

Sound reasonable?

voidstate said:

The full Mechanicus equivalent being referred to is the MIU, a device that allows its owner to commune directly with machinery in a variety of ways. The simpler MIU Weapon Interface just allows the owner to operate a mounted weapon. It's not about how well the device operates a weapon, but rather about the sophistication of the equipment as a whole.

MILLANDSON said:

Mr Adventurer said:

Also, a you cannot fire semi-auto or full-auto bursts as a standard action. Those require a full-round action to use. It's not as broken as it looks. Though, an MIU linked Stormbolter is still a dicey proposition to face down.

-=Brother Praetus=-

In the Rogue Trader Core Book on page 151 under MIU Weapon interface it says : blablabla ... This system allows user to fire an ADDITIONAL RANGED WEAPON AS A FREE ACTION - using his FULL BALLISTIC SKILL - NO MATTER WHAT OTHER ACTIONS HE MAY BE TAKING AT THE TIME. ... blabla . Why do you always try to find ways to misinterpret stuff that you dont like. Just have the GM disallow it in your game, but dont find strange excuses to not allow it.

The only drawback that makes a little sense is to just allow pistol sized weapons on unaugmented humans.

WayOfTheGun said:

Yes, because acting hostile and aggressive towards other people is always the best way to make your point.... *rollseyes*

Still, I'd only allow it with a pistol anyway, given the ones shown on Inquisitor large-scale models were all pistol-sized weapons (no storm bolters or plasma guns or whatever. How could you mount one on your shoulder anyway?), which reduces the power of them somewhat to a manageable level. That essentially makes them a poor man's upgraded ballistic mechadendrite.