It is obvious that the developers had some difficulty with shields. They started out as defensive melee weapons and then the Inquisitor handbook added the possibility to use them for cover. Then with Ascension they added permanent cover for the arbiter shield on the body and shield arm. Which when you consider that if you rule that shields count as cover makes sense. After all, your body and shieldarm is 'covered' all the time when you lug one of these around.

I checked out the living errata and they don't say a thing about the shields in the basic book and the inquisitor handbook. So what I like to know is, what are shields supposed to do right now?

I don't have access to the books atm as I'm at the office but my gut feeling says; give a parry bonus in close combat and a cover bonus vs shooting.

As they never errated it I always played that it was representitive of a shield that was too small to provide any cover.

Think of each of the shields as having their own special rules. Some provide extra armour, some shock anyone hitting it, others do nothing beyond a +15 to parry.

It looks like there might be a bit of power creep involved.

- At first only defensive weapons could give the +15 to parry. Not really that useful once you got access to two weapon wielder as a shield is only +5 compared to a sword, but the sword is something you can attack with.

- IH added cover for some reason, possible because shields weren't used much.

- Rogue Trader introduced a Power Sword with +15 to parry.

- Ascension comes along, DH PCs are given the resources to acquire a RT power sword, so the Ascension shield needs to have more special rules added to make it useful (armour boost, warding, and the ability to still wield a basic weapon while keeping the parry bonus).

What's next ?

A sword with an even higher parry chance ?

You don't need Two Weapon Fighting or Ambidextrous to wield a shield and gain its +15 bonus, the rules (any core book) clearly state parrying is not an attack and the penalty only applies to attacks.

So when wielding two swords and attacking with only one and parrying with the other you get your WS +10 as a parry (assuming the sword is balanced and gain NO penalties)

Sword/Pistol and Shield is the same thing only you get a parry of WS +15

S.

The problem is that the rules keep changing with each sourcebook. If we take Into the Storm for example and look at the suppression shield we see that it is defensive. You can use it to parry, it counts as providing 4 pts of cover armor for the bodyand shield arms. It also says that you can use it for cover (though it forgets to tell us how much cover that would be.

I've not looked too deeply into the actual rules yet but wouldn't it depend tech of the shield and what the GM gives his players.

At the start they would only get primitive wooden or steel round or kite shields, they would protect the arm and give a Parry bonus. Then they might get decent ballistic tower shields like the Witchhunter Crusader minis carry, which would protect the arm and body, but could also protect the legs if stationary and used as cover. Then you'd have different rules for Storm Shields. Not all shields would work the same way, you'd want them to scale up like the weapons and armour do.

Cover makes sense as it is an easy way to make a shield scalable. Early in their career Armour 4, Primitive shields that only cover the arm. Then you can increase coverage, and/or Armour value, remove the primitive description, increase or decrease it's parry bonus to reflect how easy it is to move around. Then add special effects like the Storm Shields. I've not even considered energy shields of one form or another. Of course you have price and rarity to also include.

The confusion in the rule books is because they are talking about shields for different levels of play, and they haven't really pulled it together with a consistent approach. Probably shields deserve a dedicated house rule or write up, to reflect all the different types in the 40K universe.

Bilateralrope said:

You mean like the Eldar Powersword in ItS which is blanaced and grants an additional +10 to parry on top of that?

-=Brother Praetus=-

Sister Callidia said:

Typically, if you are not actively using a shield for cover then the bonus AP apply to the shield arm and torso. If you are actively using a shield for cover then you are hunkered down with much of yourself conealed behind it, thus allowing the bonus AP to apply to every location. This may not be the official way to do it, but it's what I do based off of the impression of how most of the shields were described in the IHB .

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Does this Eldar Powersword come with any disadvantage that offsets it being a powerful weapon* with the highest parry bonus around ?

*Since it's a power sword I'm assuming it deals a lot of damage. Especially since it's made with Eldar technology.

Bilateralrope said:

Slightly less damage than a normal power sword, but somewhat higher Pen, and it's Near Unique and an Exotic weapon (being of alien design).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

And the Eldar will go to great lengths to recover it if they find out a Mon'Keigh has it in their possession.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

Ouch. That will hurt.

i also dont understand how shield work. I feel just 15 to parry is unnecesary, as for that i prefer to have a bolter in that hand . What is the definity rule, or at least the most "balanced". I see that if i can use the shield as cover also, it seems difficult to understand, why just the tower shield?

dosan said:

It's not 15 to parry, it's +15 to parry. So if your weapon skill is 35, a shield will parry on a 50 or less. All shields get this.

Some (well, most) shields have abilities beyond this, like shields that provide cover or extra armour. Theoretically the balance comes from different cost and weight each shield has, though some shields are completely useless.

If you don't feel a shield is worth using, then simply don't use it.

dosan said:

That is my point. Each supplement makes changes to the shield. We started with the +15% parry. The next book (Inquisitor handbook) gave the possibility to add cover and now the next books (ascension for example) gives the opportunity to use it as permanent cover for the body and shield arm.

There is no good logical reason to make those ascension rules work preactively for every shield so far. But strangely enough this has not happened. Not even in the living Errata! To be honest, I like to have a designers view on this now. (Any idea how I can ask them a question?)

Use the rules question link at the bottom of the page.

Bilateralrope said:

No, the problem is i WANT to use them, but i feel as they are not properly represented, and seeing the bonus they give to parry, +15 to parry, seems to little, for the fact that you are essentially giving a hand for using it. I was reading the inquisitor Handbook, and the other shield, the Buckler, not only dont have the +15 parry, but has the Balanced property, the same as a sword. I want to use a shield that is useful, thats why i want to know if there is a definite answer to this issue, or just need to houserule, if thats so, how? Is there any book that seems fair in the use of the shields, so i can use that rules? no matter if it is Rogue Trader or Deatwatch, or even Warhammer fantasy

When you add in the Deathwatch shields that jumps it up another level of complexity even as both of them utilize the force field mechanic as well as providing armor, etc...

can i use both shield and sword + guard attack

when parry test i will get +15 +10 +10 +ws

Mr.Nine said:

No, but you could go full defensive for +20?, and then use shield for +15. You don't get to attack that way though also.

The advantage of a buckler (with only balanced property) would seem to be that you can still hold something in that hand. The buckler is strapped to the arm, although RAW I don't think it explicitly states this. Buckler also wouldn't/shouldn't get cover bonus to any location (even most of the shield arm isn't covered).

Suijin said:

Correct, the buckler does not provide cover AP to the user.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Suijin said:

so in combat i can only use 1 melee weapon right?

Mr.Nine said:

No you can use 2, one in each hand. If you have lightning strike which lets you attack 3 times as a full action, then you can still attack 1 time with the other hand for a total of 4 attacks. If you don't have swift or lightning attack, then as a full action you can still attack with the main hand and the other hand. You don't need any talents to attack with both hands. The talents just decrease the penalties to hit.

From the DH errata 3.0:

If you have the Two Weapon Wielder talent you can hold two
weapons, one in each hand, and can make a single attack with
each. This is a Full Action, and both attack rolls suffer a –20
penalty (your off-hand weapon does not suffer the normal –20
off-hand penalty on top of this).

If you do not have the Two Weapon Wielder talent and you wield
two weapons at the same time, you can use a Full Action to make a
single attack with each weapon. However, you suffer a –20 to the
attack roll with the weapon in your dominant hand and –40 with
the weapon in your off hand.

If you have the Ambidextrous talent and Two Weapon Wielder, the
penalty for each attack is only –10.

If you have the Ambidextrous talent but not Two
Weapon Wielder, you suffer –10 to the attack roll with
your dominant hand and –30 with your off hand.

This thread is very much related to my interests. I desire to make a shield using Arbitrator character and obtain a shield asap, what ruleset should I use for the shields? Keep in mind the only rulebooks I own are the Core Book and the Inquistors Handbook.

Which shield/ruleset would be best suited for a fresh character?