Space. Marine and human heavy bolter?

By Techpriest support, in Dark Heresy Rules Questions

Can a space marine use a human scale. Heavy bolted as a. Basic weapon?

By RAW - no. Even by weight comparison - no.

OK. Thanks. It seemed that if a human treated a marine weapon as one class larger a marine night treat human weapons as one class lighter. But you know the system better than I do

You can find a lot of discussions about legitimacy of existence of "astartes" weapon class in FFG games, primarily in Deathwatch forum.

Don't forget, btw, that Spacer Marine in power armor can use Basic weapon with one hand without penalties, and that they have Bulging Biceps talent. So, depending of how you interpret Bulging Biceps talent description, you can allow at least use Basic as Pistols (in armor), or even Heavy as Basic (always).

P.S. If you need rules reference about Astartes and "human" weapon - it's in sidebar on p.146 of Deathwatch corebook.

Edited by Jargal

Well I might let a CSM use a human hb as a 2 handed weapon. So it's not really a basic weapon he can use one handed but is still. Not as heavy as a legion heavy weapon. Some people I know might want to use a human scale hb as a weapon against normal humans, low level enemies, etc and save their precious legion scale weapons and ammo for worthy foes.

Edited by Techpriest support

DH2 heavy bolter profile: -/-/6, 1d10+8X Pen 5, 40 kg. Deathwatch post-errata HB: -/-/6, 1d10+12X Pen 5, 68 kg. Not very big difference. Only if you use pre-errata stats (-/-/10, 2d10+10X Pen 6) "astartes" heavy bolter became really more effective.

What you said is true however ignores the fact that in the setting human level targets are. More common, and human scale weapons are more common. Using a 'mortal' HB against human targets saves your rarer astartes\legion ammo for worthier targets.