So, with the DW game coming closer I was wondering...

Initially they set the Marine Bolter Damage at 2d10 X, Pen 5

Than in Rogue Trader they upped the Heavy Bolter (akin to the Marine Bolter in DH) to 2d10+2 X, Pen 5

Now with Ascension they increased the damage of the Bolter (the Executor Pistol) to 2d10+4 X, Pen 5

I doubt they will stay at 2d10 X, Pen 5 because they wouldn't be able to reasonably damage Chaos Space Marines.
Say the Chaos Space marine has a TB 8 and 8 AP (Armour in Purge the Unclean is supposed to be Artificer Armour)

2d10 averages 11 + a Pen of 5 would equal zero damage on average.
2d10+2 would average at 2 damage a hit and 2d10+4 would average at 4 damage...

How many wounds do marines have....20 to 30?

You thoughts?

That's an interesting question. Insofar as I can have a "problem" with the official mechanics since I don't use them, but it because clear pretty soon that the weapon damages are fairly homogenous. Even the iconic "instakill" weapons (power swords, etc.) are survivable. I would certainly like to see a revision of the damage caused by weapons to include more variation. Rather than 1d10+2 (or whatever) for certain weapons, why not 1d10*2? Or 2d10*3?

(I think that it would also be great to retroactively apply this to the other games in an official release! )

As to wounds? Brother Agamorr, a veteran of the Deathwatch, had 25 wounds (IIRC)...

Kage

I could see it becoming a problem when Marine start duking it out....

Not in Melee Combat because a "normal" powersword in the hands of a marine is devastating 1d10+5+ (4 x 2) = 1d10+13 Pen 5 at least... 2d10+12, Pen 9 for a powerfist.

But guns are a real problem....normal lasgun, doesn't even tickle, "normal" boltgun (1d10+5, Pen 4), unlikely so if they stick to 2d10, pen 5 these battles between marines are going to slow to the point of them saying....shall we do away with these toys and fight like real superhumans?

Ascension was developed at the same time Death Watch was being developed, RT's Into the Storm will probably also up the power level a bit so all games are more balanced.

My Guess: 2d10+4 X, Pen 5, Tearing (with most marines having Mighty Shot or better).

While it's possible the Executor Pistol gets its damage from rare construction materials or whatever, I suspect the SM bolter damage will be upped to 2D10+4.

One thing to take into account is righteous fury. PCs are definitely going to have it and possibly SMs in general. Even the Dark Heresy version will likely up the damage by a D10 or two with tearing and a SM ballistic skill. If it's more like the Rogue Trader version, massive amounts of righteous fury damage is likely on a fairly regular basis.

I'm not sure.

Perhaps, marines don't have that many wounds, a nob's got 24 and that's a lot, maybe and gunfights between bolter marines is a bit more of slogging match with multiple hit's making more of difference.

And who know's what their group orders thing can add a lot of bonus to hit, if it doesn't add direct damage.

Santiago said:

Actually the weapon the Deathwatch marine has in PtU was an Astartes Bolt Pistol at 2d10+2 pen 5.

Based on that I could pretty easily see an Astartes Bolt Gun at 2d10+5 at the minimum or a max of 3d10 with the Heavy Bolter clocking in at 4d10.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Just to note, that marine had the mighty shot talent. So it's not a far stretch to presume that +2 would have been included in the astartes bolt pistol damage, hence the talk of "2D10 damage".

If FFG are going with the higher end interpretations of how dangerous SMs should be, 3D10 for boltgun/boltpistol wouldn't be out of the question.

Decessor said:

I was trying to point out the PISTOL aspect of the entry. Many people, when quoting PtU tend to call it a Bolter/BoltGun when it is a pistol.

BI and FFG both have had a few irregularities in adding talent bonuses in the NPC entries. But you are right the Mighty shot might be the +2 in the entry.

The question really becomes: is their a damge difference between a bolt pistol and bolt gun, or is it a case of range and clip capacity that should be the primary concern?

In the RT book, it's at hand, the Bolt gun and Bolt pistol do the same damage. Clip size and range are the big differences. Oddly enough the Heavy Bolter in RT does 2d10+2 damage.

Another question will be with the Flamer, Melta, and Plasma weapons. Will they do higher damage or will they stay in line with the already published material, on par with the human Heavy versions, or will they stay the same but have higher clip sizes?

Santiago said:

And then suddenly, the Deathwatch Marine loads his bolter with Kraken Penetrator rounds.

All bolt pistol / bolter damages have been equal...save the heavy...they will prolly stick to that...

2d10+4 X, Pen 5 with a lot off add on talents I suspect...

ItsUncertainWho said:

As Santiago pointed out, so far FFG have kept the damage of the human scale bolt pistols and boltguns identical and changing the range, ROF and clip. Oh and the weapon type.

With RT, they've described the differences in weapon damage coming from "new" patterns of the weapon. Not an inelegant way of tweaking weapons I think.

Good question on the heavier weapons. SMs are strong enough to carry around the "standard" heavy weapons from DH and RT without much trouble so it's entirely possible those will be ported over. But it's anyone's guess.

Don't think they will beef up the standard heavy weapons, they are damaging enough, they might streamline them a bit.

Right now when winging it I place Marine bolters at 3d10+4 pen 4.

But Marines have access to oh so many variable types of shells.

Give them the right ones and we can quickly see that hit 4 or 5 d10s, and see the pen go from anywhere from 4 to 9.

Alexis

*smiles*

I reckon they'll stick fairly closely to what has gone before, but a little better due to the "fact" that Astartes bolt weapons are meant to be bigger and better quality than "human" or "civilian" bolt weapons.

Decessor said:

The reason for this is pretty sensible. Both Bolt Pistols and Bolt Guns fire the same .75 caliber rounds; even between the so-called "civilian" models and the Astartes patterns. The heavy bolters fire a 1.00 caliber. The thing that differentiates the Astartes weapons is a larger, sturdier design and more destructive munitions, on top of an overall higher standard of quality.

I suspect we'll see Astartes Bolt weapons doing 2d10 Tearing with a Pen of 5. Heavies will likely be doing comparable damage to the Malleus Psycannon in Ascension , 2d10+5 Tearing Pen 5. We'll likely also see them all have the reliable trait as well. This is simply going off of what seems to have been evidenced so far; which is rather little honestly. We'll see. I'm really hoping to see the Stalker pattern boltgun make it in there. I want to see how FFG translates a Heavy 2 Bolt-sniper weapon to the 40K RPG mechanics.

-=Brother Praetus=-

I'd just like to add that bolters are really not supposed to be that effective at killing Space Marines. On the tabletop, they cause a casualty 1/6th of the time. Considering Deathwatch is much more likely to represent fluff Marines rather than TT Marines, I just don't think they're going to be up to the task of killing Marines very quickly without Righteous Fury rolls.

Atheosis said:

I have to agree. Bolters weren't really designed for use against the Angels of the Emperor. They work great against a whole lot of other things though. And for bigger things, we have Devastator squads.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Bearing in mind that that's still as good as most armies basic weapons get and better than most. Marines are just really durable and have to chipped away at unless you can bring up specialist weapons.

I suppose this that killing chaos marines quickly with your bolter will be dependent on what type of ammo your using kraken or vengeance rounds would probably be quickest if they are available.

Easiest way for them to "upgrade" marine bolter damage is going to be through Deathwatch specialist ammunition, higher penetration with the kraken rounds, etc

Stalker pattern bolter is pretty easy, S/2/- 2d10 pen 5, tearing, accurate (tuning a well placed bolter shell up to being 4d10 damage pen 5 is pretty nasty).

There is always a problem with taking fluff into a table game, it is never as YOU would imagen, the creators also have to make it a viable game.
The old marine bolter (2d10x, pen 5) is just as effective as the new hellgun (1d10+4e, Pen 7) when it comes to canned goods, giving the edge to the Hellgun.

And if you are fighting this Chaos Marine in ranged combat there is a differance between epic combat and dealing one or two wounds each round.
Combats don't have to be quick but a one on one battle doesn't need to take forever...

Don't forget the tearing die all bolt weapons get. That extra d10 is going to even out the difference in Pen.

Wouldn't make enough differance to make bolters effective, or effective enough against a marine.
Sure, a single bolt shell should kill them, but 5 or 6 should.