Ok, so I got a player who's a Devastator, maybe it's not leaping out at me by reading the rulebook, but what really is the draw back for being a devastator? A heavy weapon that takes just one full action to brace? Oh noes. I'd like to get some type of challenge to the group, but with a devastator, hordes and most enemies don't stand a chance under one round of fire.

Is there a weakness to Devastators? If you could think of an encounter that puts the heavy weapon marines thru, what would it be like?

Actually with bulging biceps he doesn't needs to brace, all marines have that talent.
The weakness of heavy weapons I would say...limit them CQB, to unwieldy....on board a spaceship...

I like the Devastator, but there are some limits. Defensively speaking, the slow advancement rate of both Weapon Skill and Agility means that they can't Parry or Dodge as well as many other types of Marines. They also don't really get too many Talents that a Tactical Marine can't match, and since the basic Bolter is so **** good, the Devastator doesn't really pull as far ahead in ranged combat as you might initially think. Still, once his Renown goes up a bit and his heavy bolter is fitted with a Deathwatch Suspensor, watch out!

I was wondering can the heavy bolter be fired in anything other then full auto or suppression? I mean it has no rating for single and semi auto fire?

Nope just full auto and supressive for the heavy bolter.

Little Dave said:

And since they only carry a backpack of 250 rounds, that means that they only have 25 bursts until they are out of ammo, which means they'll be needing to take along a sidearm too.

How many rounds does it fire in Full Auto or Suppression

Nuada_Obliage said:

The number it states in the stats: 10 shots per Full Auto/Suppression Fire burst.

But to answer the initial question, their main weakness is the inability to quickly engage when charged in melee. And even then, they just don't have the talents, nor have they probably put the effort into WS, to actually put up a fight

each of the types has flaws and benefits. Personally if your finding the player with a heavy bolter to be a game breaker change your game. I dont mean give up on deathwatch but just remember there are more aspects to the game than combat. As an example players are asked as part of a kill team to help out a captain in the imperial guard as it his men who are bleeding everywhere. But the captain wants to send them on a seek and destroy mission to best make use of their talents. Now they may have to crawl through sewers whose not say that some close combat ensues where he is not able to bring to bear the BFG... or maybe once they get to the enemy's camp the players make their plan in which the devastator must cover the enemy soldiers as they need a distraction so as to allow the rest of the team to kill the enemy commander. Try to think sideways rather than big gun and one way forward. Besides there may come a time when the players will need a bit of superior firepower.

MILLANDSON said:

Minor note: The weapon should come loaded, so it's actually 31 rounds.

Radomo said:

Not exactly.

The 60 rounds capacity is only in effect if the heavy bolter is used without the backpack. With the backpack the clip size changes to 250 rounds (so 25 turns of full-auto). The weapon is directly linked to the backpack and doesn´t need to reload until the backpack is empty.

The only way for more ammo I can see is if other squadmembers would carry additional backpacks and swap em (which takes a while, so probably not during combat) as soon as the devastator runs dry. But that´s pretty unconventional except maybe on very long missions.

Rawrz said:

Yes, there is a weakness, but you won't find it in the rules section:

He is the most obvious target. If the kill-team gets into a fight, the enemy is likely to do as the kill-team would do: concentrate fire on the main offensive weapon. Next in line is probably a librarian.

Also I can assure you that genestealers in close combat ruin anyone's day, devastator or no.

Alex

Indeed, the old D&D problem.....everybody on the Wizard.....ehr Devastator....

There IS a single-shot mode for the heavy bolter, sort of: if you use Hellfire rounds, the heavy bolter's ROF changes to S/-/-. It does require your Devastator to switch between his ammo feed and a second clip with Hellfire rounds (since a heavy bolter can't take a fire selector), but it does give you another option for blowing away hordes with less ammo expenditure.

You'll probably have to load them by hand, individually

moepp said:

You know, I missed that line. My read was that you got 60 rounds in the belt, and then had to spend a round to reload every 60 rounds, up to 250 in the backpack. But essentially, unless you use special ammo, you never reload a heavy weapon attached to a backpack.

It does seem odd that all the other weapons have 'enough ammunition to last the mission' and the Heavy bolter and Assault Cannon is so limited (the other heavy weapons have 75 or 100 rounds of firing). I suppose you just requisition some Kraken rounds at 10 Req per clip if 250 is not enough.

I wonder if you can even get additional ammo for a Assault cannon. If so, how much requisition? +15 since it's 3x as big as the Hvy Bolter?

moepp said:

Oddly enough, the standard rules for Deathwatch are that you have an endless supply of ranged weapon ammo (including missiles and grenades) and only have to track specialty ammo. I don't follow that rule, but it's what's in the books.

HappyDaze said:

Santiago said:

Under "Ammunition" on page 158.

I quote "Weapons Requisitioned from the Deathwatch come with a sufficient supply of standard ammunition for the weapon."

HappyDaze said:

If the backpack were an effectively unlimited ammo supply, giving it a capacity was pointless. If heavy weapons got unlimited ammo, per the aforementioned rule on page 158, the backpack would make more sense as a 'Rapid Reload' stand in. For example, use the weapon's normal reload size (e.g. 60 for heavy bolter) and require a 'reload' Full action (regardless of the weapon's listed Reload time) to cycle the belt every once in awhile/feed more plasma/whatever.

Per the RAW, if your scenario calls for an extended action (similar to Final Sanction), the Devastator is the only one that has to conserve ammunition or you have to place a re-supply point somewhere. Granted, he does go through ammunition faster than everyone else w/ a Heavy Bolter. It's just strange that you can fire a bolter or pistol for days, but your heavy weapon is out in a few minutes.

Well, the paragraph about ammunition on page 158 leaves a wide open space for interpretation. "Sufficient supply" does not necessarily mean endless supply. It´s not even clear wether that is a rules term or just a description of how the deathwatch handles ammo.

Every soldier in RL goes on a mission with "sufficient supply" provided there´s no shortage. That "sufficient supply" is usually a standardised loadout, adjusted to the requirements of the mission if needed.

As in: "A Bolter with one clip loaded and 3-5 clips in reserve and a Bolt Pistol with one clip loaded and 1-2 clips in reserve" for a Tactical Marine if we talk Deathwatch.

I highly doubt "sufficient" means "endless" in this case.

moepp said:

True, but figuring out how many clips is sufficient for a mission is going to take more work for the gm (longer missions will need more ammo), along with more work for the players by making them track it. But, since sufficient means that they shouldn't run out, giving everyone unlimited clips of their standard ammo is a reasonable simplification.

If a gm wants a battle to be at melee ranges, he has all the power he needs to ensure that the enemies reach melee range. He does not need to rely on the players running out of ammo, especially since players might screw over his plan by saving ammo.

Bilateralrope said:

Don´t get me wrong. Anyone can play like he/she wants.

But a game like this with unlimited ammo would be boring for me and lack the immersion I want. That´s not about ammo starving your group to force them to melee, just about a "reasonable" limit.

A Space Marine could carry enormous amounts ammo with his superhuman strentgh but where do you store it? Things like these...

And if a mission is particularly long and with hordes of enemies to kill, one would think that the deathwatch would back their squads up with the necessary logistics to support that mission. Air dropped supplies, a hidden storage house provided by the Ordo Xenos, maybe a Rhino APC which grants the squad additonal transport capacity, or whatever.

If its just about forcing the players into melee a simple ambush would suffice, but that´s not my point.

moepp said:

I agree, I'm pretty sure 'sufficient' means you don't have to use req to load out with basic bolt shells, you get as many clips as you would 'need' for a given mission- you don't have to buy each clip or each round, you just say 'I need 6 clips" and get them. The count for rounds on a mission can be pretty easily handwaved as a GM or estimated with fair accuracty- if all else fails have them stumble across another team of marines or the like and loot their corpses for extra ammo. If you like the unlimited ammo aspect to keep the game moving in a cinematic style go for it. But for me I like a little bit of realism, and unlimited supplies make me question why you'd even worry about clip count- if you can never run out does that half action (rapid reload) really matter? If it's truly unlimited in the RAW why do they even have ammo counts or ammo weight?

For me, I say you can't carry 18 backpacks of hb ammo or multiple packs of promethium for your heavy flamer, or 25 clips for your boltgun. Need more than you can carry for a mission, better setup a firebase or bring a donkey. And keeping track of ammo isn't really that tough, no more so than keeping track of your wounds or how many times your apothecary is able to try to heal you, or your fate points, or when you've used your demeanor, or keeping track of special powers that have a 'per session' or 'per combat' or 'per mission' use.