When I ran Final Sanction there was great drama in getting the Blood Angel Devestator time to brace to demolish hordes. His squadmates had to co-ordinate to keep any melee guys off his back so he could drop the hammer. His heavy bolter jammed twice and there was great tension.

Now with the new bulging biceps rules a devestator can just wander around without bracing and fire willy-nilly. If he rolls the 'death from afar' armour he can even move on the turn he full-autos and once he gets a bit of cred with the Deathwatch he can strap some suspensors to 'Old Painless' and full-auto as a half action. That's a half move, followed by moving your agility bonus in metres followed by a full-auto attack at -10.

Does this strike anyone else as nuts? I know suspensors negate some of the weight of a weapon but how do they make you faster than a guy with a boltgun doing the same thing?

Have I gotten something wrong? If not anyone got some fixes to bring back my tension.

How about a strength test to activate bulging biceps? If you fail you spend a half-action to brace. With Marine Strengths it would be a fairly trivial task but could throw up some hairy moments.

Maybe suspensors should just make the weapon class basic for moving and firing. This puts them back on the same level as the Tac Marine with his bolter.

Cromwell Bootstrap said:

Actually, Final Sanction doesn't even include the Brace action. Our Tac marines were mildly upset that it felt like the Heavy Bolter was the only thing that mattered for the game. I don't have a good solution for you, other than pointing out that you can move and fire with a regular bolter and (until you get all those perks with the devestator) you at least have to stand there and full-auto. I also hear that dual wielding bolters is pretty hot.

No-one will be dual wielding bolters on my watch.

That second hand is for weaponised chainsaws only.

The suspension being a blanket upgrade seems quite strange. In the TT 4th edition (no rules for DW in current ed afaik) a deathwatch squad could have a heavy bolter with suspension (first and last appearence of the suspension afair). It allowed fire on the move (assault 3 instead of heavy 3) but halved its range (from 36" to 18", a regular bolter in TT is 24" for reference).

Suspension was explained to be a highly specialised and very rare upgrade that allows a heavy bolter to be fired on the move, but at the cost of a drastically reduced range.

The index astartes pic ( wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Deathwatch01.jpg ) shows a deathwatch member with a heavy bolter and suspension. It seems to be a device on the marines back (cables leading there from the gun) indicating that it´s not intended to be compatible with an ammo backpack.

Although I couldn´t provide a Deathwatch RPG rules solution, maybe it helps as a point of reference if you feel the need to reduce the suspensions efficiency.

That's interesting. Thanks. Good to know how they were implemented in the tabletop.

It does seem a little more balanced with the range reduction alright. I'll talk to the players and see what the general feeling is.

Once you gain the Requisition, there's little stopping the Tactical Marine from picking up his own Heavy Bolter (or, my favorite, a Heavy Flamer).

FS didn't include brace becasue all marines start with bulging biceps which means you don't have to brace heavy weapons. It sucks if your players felt the HB was the only thing that mattered- I think there are workaround on some of the other threads for that though- change up the terrain, change what the group is encountering, have some more elites, etc.

As for the suspensor, yeah for some reason that bit of kit doesn't sit right with me either. Though in the image provided to the wiki, those power cables appear to be the standard power cables that run to the ammo backpack, but the gun is equipped with specialty ammo that fits in a clip. That backpack is definitely an ammo pack.

I like the ideasof the HRs to make it incompatible with the pack though, seems like a decent trade off. To me reducing the range doesn't make much sense- why does it shoot less distance because it's on anti-grav plates? Personally, I'd probably houserule it to make the auto-brace effect reduce it to the basic weapon as suggested, that way it behaves like a standard bolter but doesn't make it better, and allows minimal moving during firing, but not a half action of firing and a half action of blowing the hell out of the enemies.

Though at Req 25, it is up there in price (the same cost as a storm bolter) so picking between a storm bolter for your tac or the ability to move AND fire with the HB (or assault cannon,etc.) for your devistator may be enough to balance it out- haven't played enough to really have a firm grasp of how much req folks get at higher levels.

Charmander said:

Yes it could very well be an ammo pack on the marines back. On a second thought I believe that the suspensor was originally designed to consume power to function. The power cables (I just call them that way for the sake of the assumption) most probably lead to the PA´s regular backpack, the PA´s power source. Those cables are definetly not normal for a heavy bolter.

Can´t remember how they explained the shorter range, maybe because the weapon is lighter (less inert) it becomes harder to keep it in place while firing and provide accurate long range fire. Though I doubt that this was the explaination.

Just a thought, but I thought that Heavy Bolters can only be fired on full auto therefore are more likely to be used to suppress the enemy?

to be able to hit with all shots on full auto would require 10 levels of success and which would usually be difficult to achieve, the patter of gunfire and some of your comrades being gunned down should be enough to make you find cover and that is when the Tacs move in.

It is actually probable that the heavy bolter will hit four times which is the same as a Bolter on full, this would have the same effect on a horde regardless of the extra damage that the heavy bolter can do.

If you think that a Heavy bolter seems powerful, check out a Librarian with Avenging Flame (even fettered)!

Good hunting.

moepp said:

Just a nitpick. Suspensors were common upgrades in the Rogue trader rules, allowing a move and fire with heavy weapons.

Radomo said:

That's how I remember them. If you want to nerf the HB, perhaps don't cut down damage, cut down ROF. A ROF of 6 will hurt the weapon.

Alex

Back to the original question:

You could have melee opponents get in the heavy bolter's face more often.

Jungle/cave/sewers/tunnels/etc. will not allow the heavy bolter to fire at range.

If they fight in a nuclear reactor/ammo depot/promethium storage/under water enclosure/outside wall of space ship/etc. they maybe have to be real careful not to shoot the walls/pipes/crates. Pretty hard to get every shot to hit enemies when you are spraying them everywhere.

Also keep in mind that although you don't suffer any movement penalties with the suspensor, you lose the bonus for firing in full or semi auto if you move in that turn.

RenoDM said:

I think you're incorrect. What else would the movement penalty be than the loss of the to-hit bonus? The Auto-stabilised trait makes no mention of moving giving a penalty. What is the point of counting as a Half action if you can't use the other half action to move? Oh, so you can Delay a Full Auto burst? You already could with Overwatch.

Other than Moving, the only Half actions that could possibly apply to Semi- or Full Auto fire are Aim and Stand. Everything else is either Melee type or don't apply to Marines in most situations (Brace, Ready).

RenoDM said:

No, you don't. When firing a Basic or Pistol weapon on semi- or full-auto, you have the option of moving your Agility Bonus in metres as part of the action, in exchange for losing the bonus to hit or suffering a penalty to hit, respectively. It isn't an option for Heavy Weapons under normal circumstances, and that doesn't interact with the Auto-Stabilised Trait in any way (Auto-Stabilised allows you to fire on semi- or full-auto as a Half Action instead of a Full Action, allowing you to use the other Half Action freely, which includes movement - in theory, a character with Auto-Stabilised and a Basic weapon, such as a Terminator with a Stormbolter, could make a Half Action move, and then fire on Full Auto as a Half Action, suffering a -10 to hit instead of the normal +20 bonus in exchange for getting to move another few metres).

Thanks for the correction, I think I simply made the assumption based on the rules for full auto and semi-auto fire. As an additional note; I think the tau my players are about to fight just got a whole lot better!

HappyDaze said:

This is exactly my problem. While you lose the ability to have a good melee weapon in your off-hand that is about the only downside of taking the heavy weapon. With suspensors you are actually better at moving forward and killing the enemy than either assault or tactical marines. Space marine assault doctrine would be based around entire squads equipped with heavy flamers and heavy bolters storming enemy positions.

Now don't get me wrong, this idea sort of appeals to me but it does not sit well with the way things are portrayed in 40k. The heavy weapons are specialised and should be awesome when used in the right situation. However I feel they should have some downsides to at least give the humble bolter a chance. The Heavy Bolter does more damage, has a greater ROF, can be upgraded to be more maneuverable, can all load the same special ammo and still benefits from all the bolter talents and can have a massive backpack ammo supply (which can be blessed to not jam). At some stage the tac marine is probably doing himself a disservice by not taking the big gun and I think that is undesirable. The 'Heavy Weapons Guy' is a niche that should be protected. Other marines will use them when the mission requires it but i feel it should not be the default.

After reading through this thread and considering it, I think I'm inclined to just removing the suspensor from my game. Seems to go against the "feel" of things.

Of course the Heavy Bolter outclasses the Bolt Gun; it's supposed to. The venerable Bolt Gun is still a fairly simple beginner's weapon within the Deathwatch. More renown kill-teams will commonly employ storm bolters and heavy weapons. Just as the chainsword is just a beginner's weapon and more experienced teams using power fists or thunder hammers or lightning claws.

These Deathwatch kill-teams get some of the worst missions and they will load out to the max if the mission calls for it. And don't forget that all DW (includingTacticals) Marines are proficient in use with the Heavy Bolter. There is nothing wrong with them requesting one, not even if an Assault Marine does it.

Perhaps the kill-team ideal isn't one player becoming the best possible boltgun shootist, another the best possible heavy weapon shooter, the next the best possible close combat guy, etc. Perhaps the ideal is a kill-team bristling with the most lethal weapons the Imperium can provide.

Let the kill-team maximize and optimize. Then throw some truly epic opposition in their face.

Alex

When I first read the rules I was a bit narked at Bulging Biceps being a starting trait for space marines, and was immediately concerned that it would make heavy weapons too powerful. However, having played a few games, it doesn't really appear to have been an issue.

The Heavy Bolter has a significant, but hardly massive, damage advantage over the bolter. Whilst it can theoretically land more hits on a target than a bolter when firing full auto, in practice the Devastator will have to be pretty lucky to frequently get more than 4 Margins of Success, even with the +20 for firing full auto. In the games I have played so far, our devastator has done more damage then his battle brothers, but not enough to overshadow them. Even when other heavy weapons become available, I can't see them being all that much more effective then their basic equivalents, at least, not to the extent that the other players cannot contribute significantly.

To add further fuel to the bolter/heavy bolter debate: Hellfire rounds. Being able to rapid fire them with a bolter makes them approximatley as lethal (especially with the +20BS for rapid fire) against hordes as the blast variant heavy bolters use, and significantly more effective when trying to bring down big ugly xenos. As a long-time 40k player, I like the shout-out to the old 2nd ed hellfire rounds, but I don't really see the use in DW.

Note from myself.

Just finished playing Final sanction playerside. We tweaked it a bit, my Red Scorpion Apothocary stood in for the Ultramarine and we had a Spacewolf Longfang instead of a Blood Angels devastator.

Bolter Marines did the majority of the hard work, and the Longfang actualy ran out of amunition during the last stand. He fell back on his bolt pistol (Cool moment as the tac marines spent half actions tossing him spare clips as we all fell back).

The heavy bolter was awesome for handling elite enemies while the bolter marines chewed up the hordesto give him space to operate. But with the Heavy Bolter only able to fire ten rounds at a time, the Longfang realy had to conserve his ammunition, especialy once we started slogging through the city. We had no opportunities to re-supply once we "hit the road" and that is what balances out the Support weapons, ammo consumption. A 200 round backpack feed isn't something you can swap out.

Just an idea... Maybe a suspensor should work like a force field. Say, you have to roll under a certain percent for it to function normally. 90%? Then it can overload like a shield when you roll under 10%? That could throw a kink in things... Just a thought.