Hello.

We´ve got a problem the other day. One of our psykers was attacking an vehicle with a force weapon. Our problem is that we don´t know if you can use the additional damage dealt by the weapon is used againt vehicles. Another problem is that you have to make an opposed willpower check to see how much additional damage is dealt. Are vehicles immun? And if not, whats the WP for vehicles?

Can somebody help with this problem?

I would say that you can't use the extra blast against vehicles, since, indeed, they have no WP. Unless you stab a driver through a vision slit and he dies and the vehicle goes skidding out of control.

That was our idea too. But what if a machine has a machine-spirit? Does it have WP then like a servitor or a servo-skull?

I would say No. The "machine-spirit" is more like high-end computer programming... or at least that is the interpretation I have from the Forge World Armoury Books talking about different machine -spirit cores in the vehicles. Remember this is just high-end programming and Not artificial intelligence which is heresy.

-Cynr

Ok.

But a servo-skull also gets the extra damage. And it has an WP score.

Minthamarr said:

That's because a servo-skull, like a servitor, is still a living creature. The Dark Heresy book describes them as: "fusions of flesh and machine made from culture-grown organics or mind-wiped human bodies." The same applies to Cherubs, etc.

I remember a scene in one of the Gaunt's Ghost novel where Saint Sabbat jumps on top of a tank and stabs it with her sword, destroying it. So, in the spirit of that scene, I would rule that Force Weapons can do extra damage to inanimate objects. I see no reason why a "contact" between two living beings is needed for them to function. It is not the contact between living beings, it is the psychic power that the Force Weapon amplifies, destroying anything it hits. Living beings get a chance to resist it, dead matter is just ripped apart as long as the psyker succeeds in his own WP roll. If a psyker rolls 3 degrees of success on his WP roll = 3d10 more damage to the vehicle etc.

This would certainly follow the fluff a lot more accurately than a "* CLONGG *". If Force Weapons "are capable of channelling the mental power and aggression of a psyker into a deadly, reality-rending force ", as they are described in IH, telling the psyker's player that "I am sorry, but you must hit living flesh with a will of its own to rend reality apart" is just not credible.

On force weapon usage, remember that the force weapon is charged with psychic energies. This energy is translated into a near power field like style. The rules of the game denote that this adds to the damage and penetration of the weapon. As it comes to inanimate objects like a simple wartrack or civilian vehicle I wouldn't bother with the rolling of a "machine" willpower, and would just allow damage; however, in the case of hardened machinary of military nature I would give the target vehicle the rating of its armor or toughness as the willpower (Armor *10 to determine statistic). This would give truly hardened vehicles like a Landspeeder or a Leman Russ a solid advantage against a force weapon destroying them in a single hit. This said remember that powerfists are similiar in nature to a force weapon in many terms. One must think that if a psyker has a willpower or 50+ and hits something like a person and slices through them like butter (most armors being far less then 5), the vehicle armor statistic would only help so much.

addendum: I would also consider versus single character melee attacks of allowing vehicles to roll twice for willpower taking the better result if they are hardened armors, tanks, spaceships of course, etc. This would also deter a single entity from turning the tide of war. As would seem obvious this would also possibly have to be improved more so in the case of a titan of the field, as an Alpha plus psyker by definition would destroy this being in psychic combat, yet the blade should not do this for him.

Hope these help with some ideas...

Jan Solo and Zrako make excellent points. I was under the impression that Force weapons dealt psychic damage rather than physically manifesting the psyker's will as an energy field. In this case, I would agree that inanimate objects can be harmed with Force weapons.

Edit: Since inanimate objects have no WP score, don't they automatically fail their WP tests?