In this topic, we are discussing the mechanics, and not the fluff (I don't care about the calibres of bolt guns) of firing bolters. For the purposes of the post, I will be notating the Tearing trait as rolling 3 dice, keeping 2, or (3k2)d10.

Single shot: No attack bonus, one shot. Damage potential 1x (3k2)d10+5.

Semi-auto: +10 to hit, two shots. Damage potential 2x (3k2)d10+5. Additional hits on every 2 degrees of success.

Full-auto: +20 to hit, four shots. Damage potential 4x (3k2)d10+5. Additional hits on every degree of success.

It seems to me that the bolter becomes a better weapon when firing on full-auto, as opposed to single shots. The increased bonus to hit, as well as the greater chances for scoring multiple hits, compared to semi-auto, mean that the bolter is most effective on fully automatic. Also worth mentioning, when firing at a target who may dodge, hitting with multiple shots will make it harder to dodge, as they must now roll an equal number of successes as your attack roll.

This seems a little unrealistic to me. While I agree that firing a gun on full-auto would actually increase your chances of hitting the target (by multiplying your odds), shouldn't it decrease your chances with hitting multiple times due to recoil and such?

Assuming a Rank 1 Tactical Marine with BS 40 and Bolter Mastery shooting at a single target...

Semi-auto: 60 to hit. Maximum hits on a 40 or less. Single hit on a 41-60.

Full-auto: 70 to hit. Maximum hits on a 40 or less. Three hits on 41-50. Two hits on 51-60. Single hit on 61-70.

We can see that not only does the Full-auto shot become superior in terms of bonus to hit, we can see that the chances of landing maximal rounds is actually even. My conclusion is that you should never fire the bolter on anything less than Full-auto.

The obvious argument against this is ammunition conservation, but that is more of a strategic decision, than a tactical one.

If I had to change one thing here, I would swap the degrees of success requirement for the semi-auto and full-auto actions. In my mind, precision fire should be rewarded in some way to make it a valid alternative to spray-and-pray.

The obvious argument against this is ammunition conservation, but that is more of a strategic decision, than a tactical one.

...so? Assuming you're behind enemy lines, with your supply chain practically nonexistent (a standard scenario in Deathwatch), in which way is the conservation of ammo not relevant?

I've seen this discussed on the DH and RT boards as well, and the conclusion is exactly as you put it- Full Auto is a superior attack form (though multiple close combat attacks or the like can work similarly), and it's totally unrealistic. In DW it gets even more absurd as a bolter firing 4 shots counts as full auto, as opposed to most other weapons that fire 10 (but you can't have it fire 10 shots or it would be as good as the HB).

Some HR suggestions are just what you put forth- make full atuo +10 and semi-auto (which is actually just a short burst at full auto) +20. Alternatly people have swapped the DoS rule, and say that every degree on a short burst is an additional hit, but every two DoSs on a full burst give additional hits.

If you implement those you have to tinker with the way you set up your adventures mind you, as your group will do far less damage to hordes and your elites will live for a much longer period of time.

@Cifer: It depends on where you stand on the ammuniton debate on the Heavy Bolter thread regarding what the term "Sufficient Supply" of ammunition means .

Charmander said:

If your mission requires you to spend weeks behind enemy lines, I doubt they carry enough ammo to be full-autoing all the time. "Sufficient Supply" means a sensible amount of ammo. For a short mission over a day, or even a couple of days, sure, the Marines probably carry enough ammo to keep them going the entire time. Hit a week, two weeks, longer, and without a resupply you're going to be in trouble.

In all cases in the rate of fire should be looked at as short controlled bursts of a semi or full auto nature. I have never looked at the Full Auto rating and thought this is what holding the trigger down does.

Ammo conservation is a concern and the use of full auto is a quick way to get yourself into trouble by running out of ammo. Full auto is also wasteful against a lot of enemies. A Deathwatch Kill Team is not a Space Marine strike force. They will be operating alone and away from re-supply for far longer than a normal space marine force. Ammo conservation should be a concern.

All weapons are better firing full auto, unless they are accurate.

Sufficient Supply does not equal unlimited as some have argued in the other thread. That line of thinking is silly at best.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Both the Sufficient Supply rule as well as the Full-Auto rule demonstrate the same thing: Deathwatch is not geared towards realism. It is geared towards heroic, cineastic action. Suits me just fine, personally, but people who want realism will need to tweak the rules.

Alex

I think people are assuming a lot about that Sufficient Supply line.

If you require 2 DoS per shot for Full Auto, you might as well send the heavy bolter home. It is already difficult to get the 10 DoS needed to hit with all of the rounds in a burst. If you need 2 per round, the heavy bolter/assault cannons will be lucky to hit 4 rounds. Every Devastator would only carry Heavy flamers or lascannons, or switch to Tac marine.

I'm a proponent of 1 DoS per hit for each and swapping the BS bonus.

ItsUncertainWho said:

I 100% agree here, but AK has some good points. A LOT of the rules are geared towards gamey high-cinema style, so I can see where people would jump to that particular conclusion from. I won't be using it, but then again I'll probably be tweaking more than just this to give my game the feel I want for it, which is just a tad bit more simulation/realism than the current ruleset is geared towards.

This may fall into the "fluff" category, but it is relevant toward the accuracy of boltguns on full auto. A boltgun is not an automatic rifle; it is an advanced automatic gyrojet gun. The bolt is a miniaturized rocket, and is self-propelled once it exits the weapon. This kind of projectile does not need a huge charge to propel it from the firing chamber to the target, so a boltgun would not have significant recoil (especially when you take into account the massive strength of an armoured Marine and any built-in compensation systems a boltgun is almost certain to have). They make a lot of noise, but they don't kick hard (relative to a Space Marine at least).

In any case, I think most Astartes would practice ammo conservation, and use as much ammo as they thought was needed to take down a particular target. If you're firing at an oncoming carnifex, full auto until the mag runs dry; if you need to kill one fleeing Guardsman, single shot or a double tap is probably enough.

As I stated in my original post, the conservation of ammunition is a strategic, and not a tactical decision. It completely depends on what the team is there to do. And as such, they will always act in accordance with the overall strategy. If it's a long, protracted campaign behind enemy lines, then well yes, that is what I would call a strategic conservation of ammo.

And in regards to full-auto not holding down the trigger... I have to disagree there. If the Heavy Bolter unleashes 10 rounds per action firing on fully automatic, and the Bolter fires 4 in the same amount of time, I think it's implied that the fire-rate of the Heavy weapon is simply higher than the standard assault rifle.

It's not that they simple choose to fire them at a slower rate, it's that this is how fast the gun can fire, as fast as possible. Hence.... full auto.

Regardless, the findings of this subject conclude that there are no tangible benefits to firing on anything less than full auto, munitions aside. Heck, you can even fire on full-auto after an aim action, which is another thing that just doesn't make any sense to me. You can aim all you want, but I don't think the 4th round you fire in a 5-second burst is going to have any inherent bonus from said aiming.

@J-Tech

As I stated in my original post, the conservation of ammunition is a strategic, and not a tactical decision. It completely depends on what the team is there to do. And as such, they will always act in accordance with the overall strategy. If it's a long, protracted campaign behind enemy lines, then well yes, that is what I would call a strategic conservation of ammo.

Pretty much everything a Deathwatch Team does on a mission will be a tactical decision - strategy is decided in command centres and war rooms.

It's not that they simple choose to fire them at a slower rate, it's that this is how fast the gun can fire, as fast as possible. Hence.... full auto.

I know there are a few areas where the technology of 40k has made some steps back, but... an assault rifle (like the autogun is probably supposed to reference) that fires 10 shots in 6 seconds? Most assault rifles I've found the data for by a cursory search go through ten bullets in a second.

Cifer said:

Depends on scope. Crusade-scope? Warmaster. Mission-scope? Team leader.

Cifer said:

It's not a realistic game. It's not intended to be super-realistic or even close.

Alex

The bolter is not a "gun" in the sense of a modern assault rifle shooting bullets. As stated, they fire self-propelled mini-rockets, and thus your argument is flawed.

Space Marines ALWAYS...

(repeat the mantra)

ALWAYS

(repeat the mantra to the Primarch)

ALWAYS

(repeat the mantra to the God Emperor)

ALWAYS...

... practice ammo conservation. In every novel written about them that I've read (around 14 at last count) there was never a single instance where a Space Marine willingly unloaded an entire clip at the enemy "just to be sure". Every shot was in a controlled burst. While the weapon designations in Deathwatch and the other 40K games are listed as:

Single shot

Semi-automatic shot

Automatic shot

the actual mechanics behind those terminologies would suggest otherwise in comparison to a real-world definition of the same terms.

Single shot is still single shot.

Semi-automatic shot is a "quick burst" of bullets. Pull the trigger and X amount of bullets are fired.

Automatic shot is the same as semi-automatic shot, except more bullets are fired and it's closer to a "full automatic" as we would understand it.

Therefore, the Aim Action would make sense with a choice of Automatic fire.

That's how I interpret it.

Again, I disagree.

Fully automatic - A gun which, when the trigger is pulled and the chamber is loaded, will fire a round, eject the spent casing, and chamber a fresh round, and automatically repeat this process so long as the trigger is held down.

There is absolutely no indication that the designers of Deathwatch wrote the ability as Full-Auto, with the intention that it actually meant a marine shooting several shots in quick succession. That is just the most round-about thinking on this subject that I can imagine. "Oh see they wrote Full-Auto... but they didn't MEAN it." :s

Think of it another way, in one round, a person can only achieve so much. In this fractured, time-standing-still-whilst-I-act world of RPGs, there has to be a limit on what someone can accomplish in the span of one action. A person swinging a power fist, squeezing off a shot with a pistol, firing a salvo of shots from a heavy weapon, all seem reasonable. One marine shooting four controlled shots in the same time it takes another marine to shoot one implies that the fully automatic firing is just that.

J-Tech said:

From the definitions that I read, a bolter has 3 modes of fire:

Single Shot

4 round burst shot

Full Automatic (as you would describe it)

It would appear that the game mechanics are only representing the Single shot, quick "double tap" Semi-automatic firing, and the 4 round burst capability.

Not sure why that is, perhaps for balancing seeing as a bolter could theoretically fire 10 bolter shots in a single round on full automatic which is what a Heavy Bolter can accomplish. Therefore, they would need to make the Heavy Bolter step up to firing around 50 rounds in a single round for it to make sense.

We are now arguing over the realism of a fictional gun in a game. I shall leave you with this: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Bolter

@J-Tech

The bolter is not a "gun" in the sense of a modern assault rifle shooting bullets. As stated, they fire self-propelled mini-rockets, and thus your argument is flawed.

The autogun is a gun in the sense of a modern assault rifle. Guess what its full auto capacity is.

How does the firing rate of a slugthrower in any way influence the rate of fire on a boltgun? The bolter feels bad it's not firing as fast as the low-tech cousin the autogun and speeds itself up? Seriously...

In both DH, RT and now in DW, my players and I all felt that the full-auto had a "off" -feel to it. Especially when sniping at long range or just long range engagements, my players soon found that the precise sniper shot to the head was insanely underpowered compared to full-auto weapons. (even with the accurate rules) The +20 bonus is simply to good to ignore and the damage potential way higher than single and semi-auto shots makes full-auto the "only" real option at any range and any encounter.

We fixed this by reducing the full-auto bonus (+20) by 10% per range band. And so firing your Bolter at medium rang is +10 and long range is a +0 bonus for burst fire. Extreme range actually gives you a -10 modifier if firing full auto. Full-auto cannot be aimed or be called shots.

Semi-auto retains the +10 bonus at all ranges but cannot be aimed or be called shots

This makes aimed single shots the most effective at long ranges and for hitting around cover (called shots). While the medium range fights are dominated by the semi-full auto weapons and up close full-auto wins flatout

Theres my two bolt rounds

Serialkilla said:

I know what you mean and it sounds like it's play tested, but it also seems that full auto only weapons, like heavies, get a bit of raw deal.

I'm of the opinion that even a long range a practised shooter can be more increase the chances of landing a hit by putting more rounds down range, but they aren't likely to hit a lot. Especially seeing as a full auto burst has the same chance of hitting as an accurate weapon but as it is currently you score extra hits more easily and the accurate weapon (if it has a tele-scope) gains the benefit from that.

I would be tempted to increase the DoS needed for additional hits with an auto weapon up to 2 at long and extreme ranges.

It's also worth pointing out that because you can't call a shot with an auto burst which takes good chunk away when people are in cover although in DW with a bolter you can pretty much always auto-fire and rely on RF to blast through cover.

@J-Tech

How does the firing rate of a slugthrower in any way influence the rate of fire on a boltgun? The bolter feels bad it's not firing as fast as the low-tech cousin the autogun and speeds itself up? Seriously...

You're arguing that full-auto means a long uncontrolled burst of fire, but when you take a look at the autogun, that's more like one second of fire with five seconds of the turn spent bracing and readjusting your aim between short burst.

I believe the disconnect in these arguments is in the difference between spraying wildly with an automatic weapon and firing a controlled burst with an automatic weapon.

A controlled burst is just that, controlled. This is represented by the -/-/10 rating. The full auto number represents a precisely timed, controlled, fully automatic burst that is designed to get as many rounds on target as possible, while conserving as much ammo as possible.

Spraying wildly would turn an automatic weapon into an area effect attack more like a flamer and use most if not all of the clip.

One thing to consider is to limit the number of average damage rolls per attack that hits. You don't want to have to spend the time roll damage 6 times for an experienced SM with bolter each time he hits or sth like that. I'm fine with the ROF and the full- and semi-auto rules.

If you tweak the rules to become more realistic it only becomes just another fully realistic modern combat system like countless others out there.

Alex