Althought I haven't got the book yet (only read the previews), I'd say that all marine bolt-weapons are overpowered. Yes, it has been said that the boltweapons presented in DH and RT are civilian versions, but they still use same caliber ammo (perhaps the explosives are better, but still). I always had thought that only the weapons would get better with longer range, bigger clips and so on, not the damage jump so much. Not by giving them huge damagebonus.

I have used the bolter rules Luddite made a while ago with my DH Space Marine campaing, and I saw not much problem with it. OK, the bolts didn't tear enemies into two in one hit, but most ranged weapons aren't that lethal in 40kRPG as you would think.

But why then other weapons aren't given massive damageboost as well? Or, even better: why not balance all the weapons between DH, RT and DW (like in TT)? After all, isn't most of the technology standardised in the Imperium? It is certain that the SM should have better quality weapons, but not outright completely different weapons which just share their technology with the rest of imperial weapons.

(And this whole thing stinks of power creep to me)

Face Eater said:

Oh if it only was that... The sad truth is far, far worse.

I did a few calculations agains Chaos Marine (armor 8, TB 8, 20 wounds), Ork (armor 2, TB 8, 12 wounds) and Tyranid Warrior (armor 8, TB 10, 48 wounds) as targets. The following table shows how many hits, on average, you need for each weapon to the target to zero wounds or below.

Astartes Bolter 8 / Tyranid, 2,5 / Marine, 1,2 / Ork

Astartes Heavy Bolter 4,4 / Tyranid, 1,5 / Marine, 1 / Ork

Astartes Plasma Gun (at max setting) 4,8 / Tyranid, 1,7 / Marine, 1 / Ork

Astartes Meltagun 5,3 / Tyranid, 1,8 / Marine, 1,1 / Ork

I hope you can see the problem.

Well, the only one that seems weak there is the Plasma gun to me. Melta is a bit low, but there is that +1d10 from short range working for it, and using a Meltagun on those targets is a bit of a slight misuse, its meant for armored vehicles, you lose a lot of "damage potential" when all that excess Pen gets wasted.

Your stats listed for the plasma gun are on Maximal, if that was its normal mode (basically the +1d10 damage I'm endorsing), I think it'd be pretty well done. Or at least more balanced with the Heavy Bolter. On tabletop the H.Bolter can potentially multiple models a turn, so assuming the Marine is spreading hits out to multiple enemies, its not quite AS bad. Its only when you concentrate hits on a single target it gets a bit obscene.

GalagaGalaxian said:

Please compare meltagun with krak missile and lascannon and then you'll see why I have tried to upgrade it in the retooling of weapons topic.

Alex

Polaria said:

Keep in mind that even Marine seek out cover and with a Pen of 4-5 on average, Bolter weapon lose out more on damage potential than Plasma and especially Melta Guns.

If Shooting at Marine who's hiding your ubiquious chess-high wall, the Marine's body Armor of 10 added to the cover's 8 mean 18 Armor. Let's assume a TB of 8.

That means your typical Bolter will roll 2D10 -16 , even with Tearing, the odds are really good that bullets won't do any damage at all.

Against the same Marines, a Melta Gun will deals 2D10 -5 (3D10-5 at Short Range), which mean you're looking at 6 (11 at short range) or so damage on average per shot... on top of that, since Melta Gun are only single shot, you're much more likely to make a called shot to one of the target's un-covered body part (where as the bolter user will most likely burst or full auto).

So yeah... I'm not saying the situation is ideal, but you're not putting the weapons in a realistic combat situation.

And 12 wounds for an Ork seems very low...

12 wounds is the stats given for your average Ork boy in Dark Heresy's Creatures Anathema. Nobs get 20+ wounds IIRC. Boyz in Creatures Anathema also don't have Unnatural Strength, just Unnatural Toughness. I think its fine, makes them good Horde fodder, while Nobs can easily go one on one with Marines.

The Ork freebooters in RT have 16, which seems much more fitting.

Still, the point I wanted to make is that the Melta Gun at least, has it's purpose... in short range fight with heavy cover (and that sounds like a lot of fights) it plays a very good role of basically smashing throught cover.

Have one battle brother set an overwatch that he shoots anything that gets out of cover (or do suppression fire to pin them), one battle-brother shooting at the people in cover, dealing decent damage and destroying their cover with every shot and a 3rd battle-brother who's going around to flank the enemies and they're faced with a lose-lose-lose situation.

Tarkand said:

Brother Hestus, you take this ancient, near mystically revered, melta gun... in case some-one's in cover.

Aww, why do I have to be the one that takes the ancient super weapon?

As I said, it's not just about comparing one Marine weapon to another, it's the difference between that all other weapons. In DH the inflexibility of melee is balanced a bit by doing more damage, of course add a mighty marines strength to it does more damage anyway, but is a chainsword doing as much damage as a bolter 1d10+13, pen 4, tearing vs 2d10+5, pen 5, tearing. Looks similar but throw in full auto, throw in bolter mastery (or numerous other ability) and the ability to stay out of trouble and it doesn't really match any more.

But that's just an example, the mighty Deathspitter, a huge deadly weapon carried by the litterally enourmous Tyranid warriors, now does the same damage as non astartes Bolter. Mild-wound spitter more like.

The Pulse rifle, a super science mix of railgun and plasma weapon. It's alright, would be scary in Dark Heresy.

I'm not usually the type to nitpick about rules, but I noticed this as well. All marines have bulging bicepts, so with a req of 20 I don't see why eveyone in the squad wouldn't take one of these. The only thing that balances this puppy is that it burns through ammo, but our group doesn't generally considering record keeping fun.

I thought the Dark Heresy Bolter was plenty powerful. The Angelus Bolt Carbine uses Astartes rounds and does 2d10X Pen 5. That seems more reasonable to me.

Note that melee has the massive advantage of not letting your folks use rifles and other heavy weapons. So even if you have a heavy bolter or melta you still need a good melee weapon.

In fact, even if the Heavy bolter is tough, it has never more than 250 rounds in its heavy ammo backpack, which makes only 25 shots... Really few if you compare to Heavy flamer or Plasma Cannon.

If a Devastator plays Final Sanction, I think he will shoot a lot more than 25 times. So getting new ammo will quickly be a priority.

This is a pretty hard hindrance of the heavy bolter I think.

1. I don't think Bolters are too good or if so by 1 (2in case of the HB) damage points. Some other weapons are not good enough. Meltaguns and Plasmaguns (and their pistol versions) need an additional D10. I would suggest the same for the Deathspitter. Even though the ROF is low, together with the Toxic Trait (which doesn't get reduced by Tougness nor AP, btw), it should do okay.

2. As for melee damage - an easy to overlook ability is Feat of Strength (p. 216). Combined with various Talents (Swift Strike, Furious Assault, Two Weapons) or a Jump Pack Charge this can hurt a lot . Not to mention what a librarian can do. I have never been a fan of the Blood Angels but I think in this game the Blood Angel librarians are a 1st draft pick. And Blood Angel Assault Marines seem to be quite intriguing too.

Alex

I think that the question you're going to have to answer is just how good is the Grey Knight or the Custodian Heavy Bolter?

Kage

Face Eater said:

I guess it depends on your GM, but I find cover to be extremely common in our games. I don't know, I guess it's possible that your fights are mainly in wide open plain or hallways, but it's actually quite rare in our Rogue Trader game that there isn't cover all over the place, I don't see this changing in DW... meaning the 'in case someone is in cover' become quite common.

Kage2020 said:

There's rules for exceptional and master-crafted weapons. If I nerf the Bolter slightly by 1 point to 2d10+4 and the Heavy Bolter by 2 to 2d10+8, it might do. It doesn't seem more deadly than getting hit by a a heavy machine gun in other games.

Alex

The website http://anydice.com is pretty handy for figuring out just how damaging the weapons ought to be.

For example, to see how likely it is to roll a given amount of damage with the standard Astartes bolter, use the formula output {1,2}@3d10+5 . That will take two best out of three rolls, and add five to the result.

This makes it easy to calculate just how likely a weapon is to penetrate or damage something.