There are 2 types of TWW: Ballistic and Melee

Neither are needed to actually attack with both hands (as per errata of DH)

The armory section for grenades states they use ballistic skill. So if you actually had TWW (ballistic) you don't think that would apply to grenades because they are thrown (I mean they even have melee for the other type, and you use your "weapon" skill for that)? I assume you do the same for shurkin/thowing knives where you don't even allow them to throw 2 in the same turn under any circumstances then since they are thrown (which is counter to the errata as I read it)?

From DH errata 3.0:

"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."

Many Astartes will however not act like that because it would look like a desperate measure to on-lookers - or just not feel right. Why would have a SM resort to such measures? They are the Angel of Death... throwing the grenades in successive rounds should be enough to shock the enemy in order for the Marine to move in and mop up the rest.

Not optimizing an attack is at times part of demonstrating one's complete superiority and the foolishness of the other side to even think about facing down the Emperor's Finest.

Alex

PS Note that my way of wording it leaves room for exceptions.

Suijin said:

It's not called TWW(Ballistic) because it applies to weapons that use Ballistic Skill. It is called that because they are projectiles (i.e. ballistic in nature). Shurikens and Throwing knives are Thrown weapons, which have a distinct talent for use.

You may not see the distinction, but DW is a different game than DH, so the DH errata doesn't really apply. In DW you cannot attack with both weapons without TWW talent. Since the DH errata existed at the time of DW's writing, I think they would have incorporated it, if they wanted it so.

Per the TWW talent on pg 128:

' When armed with two weapons of the same type, the character may spend a Full Action to attack with both. Both test made to attack with the weapons suffer -20 penalty.'

If you could use two weapons without the talent, it should say that it reduces the penalty in some fashion.

Per the description on pg 246.

• 'The character may use either hand to make an attack. Attacks made using the character's secondary hand suffer a -20 penalty.
• If the character has the Two-Weapon Wielder talent, he may use the Multiple Attacks combat Action to attack with both weapons, but each suffers a -20 penalty to the Weapon Skill or Ballistic Skill Test. If the character has the Ambidextrous Talent, these penalties to -10.

There is no listing anywhere for what the penalty would be without the TWW talent. It says, if you have the talent, you can attack with two weapons. If you don't have the talent, you don't have the option to attack with both.

As for the previous poster, since it says that, using TWW, the penalty is -20 to both, and, without Ambidextrous, you take -20 to the off hand, your options are -10/-10 with both, or -20/-40 with only TWW. Ambidextrous only does not allow you to make two attacks.

No, it's unclear. Multiple Attacks on page 241 do not require tww only a second weapon. Someone ask FFG about it and post the reply here.

Alex

ak-73 said:

How is it unclear? Multiple Attacks refers you to Two Weapon Fighting on pg 246, which I quoted above. If attacking without TWW is possible, what is the penalty for doing so and where in the DW book is it listed?

Since the Multiple Attacks section on page 241 does not mention the requirement of TWW, only that you have a second weapon, then I think it would make logical sense to use the DH errata for the correct penalties.

Occams Razor for this one people.

The ruling exists somewhere else using the same core system, and you are using a "superior" character than that system, then in the absence of a RAW... I'd go with the existing rules elsewhere.

Radomo said:

If attacking without tww is impossible, why does page 241 explicitly say:

"... or is wielding a weapon in his secondary hand." Why are Swift Strike and Lightning Strike explicitly mentioned but not tww?

The only pre-condition that page 241 states is having a second weapon. Which is consistent with previous 40K Roleplay rulebooks.

And then we arrive at the heart of the problem: the Deathwatch Core Rulebook has quite obviously been partially a rush job with FFG apparently having to meet a deadline and suffering from page count problems. Which would explain inconsistencies, editing errors, etc.

Ask FFG: :-)

Alex

Or best yet just have your GM rule on it.

Just point them to the DH errata also with the foreknowledge that they likely have the to-hit bonuses for only having ambidextrous and only having TWW switched around in the errata.

I still think TW (ballistic) should apply to thrown weapons also. Seems very wrong to not be able to throw 2 knives in the same turn.

SpawnoChaos said:

That's kind of funny, as Occam's razor would actually imply you should use the simpler option, which is use the RAW and don't track down rule amendments for a different game.

But I give up. You can attack with two weapons at -20/-40 w/o talents, -20/-20 w/ TWW, or -10/-10 with both. That seems trivial with the massive to hit bonuses marines will see, especially when facing hordes, but play how you like. Actually, this makes me really made for bothering to take TWW with my assault marine. Might as well just use two weapons and take the -30 for the off hand. Main hand is at -10 either way, and you save 500xp. Makes it seem stupid to even have the talent at all. 500xp for -20 on one out of 3-4 attacks? bah.

All marines should now dual wield flamers and elite advance cleanse and purge so they can knock out 10+4d5 magnitude a turn.

This is also way off topic of snipers.

I still say dual wielding grenades is silly.

Radomo said:

A matter of interpretation, to me the simpler course is using the rules that already exist for the same system.

To each his own.

Radomo said:

I do agree with most of your examples seem kind of silly of being allowed. I also think technically RAW they are allowed.

I did look at the statistics for to-hit and damage for 2 basic flamers vs a heavy flamer. Overall there wasn't much difference between the 2. Heavy was better if the opponent had heavy armor/toughness (space marine level). The DW basic always hit more often no matter what agility was. The total damage on unarmored, 40 agility & toughness foes, even considering the very high chance of hitting twice with a basic flamer, wasn't that much higher with basic flamers as compared to the heavy (about 23.4 for basic compared to 15.6 with the heavy, this was the largest difference between the 2). The area covered by a heavy flamer is also over twice that of a basic (241.15m^2 for heavy and 107.2m^2 for a basic, and 26.75m^2 for a pistol), but that is all situational.

The heavy only requires a half action to shoot, while the DW requires a full action.

You can only be set on fire once.

Dodging does make the DW basics probably a little better overall.

I was actually surprised the difference between the 2 was so small.

The to-hits for having/not having talents should be -20/-20 only having ambidextrous, -10/-30 only having TWW, and -10/-10 having both. They seem to have made an error in the errata and the description of TWW (ambidextrous description is correct) concerning those, and it has been pointed out to the devs and they are looking at it.

So really having TWW gives you +10 to-hit with each hand, not bad overall.

But depending on if you buy into the needing TWW argument to fire two weapons at once, doesnt that make dual wielding flamers pretty nice?

Of course, in the immortal words of Chesty Puller - "Where do you put the bayonet?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Puller

Personally, I find being a generalist to always be better than to min/max damage. Use that offhand to keep your chainsword ready.

Also, on the original sniper discussion, grenades are kind of a moot point, as the character would be so far from the enemy, dealing 2 mag damage is preferable to a -30 (or even out of range) on a grenade toss.

Suijin said:

But that's not what RAW says. Having TWW only means you attack at -20/-20. Having both is -10/-10. I agree that it would make more sense if it were the way you've listed, but that's not what the RAW says, nor the errata that people keep pointing at. That errata is months old, and all the games have listed TWW allows you to attack with both weapons at -20/-20 (looking at their respective talent descriptions).

A further point to ponder, if you don't need TWW to fight with two weapons, why does it specifically say you need both types of TWW to fight with a gun and melee weapon at the same time? Swinging two swords or blazing with two guns is fine, but one each requires double training?

RAW the descriptions for ambidextrous and TWW are the same, just stated in slightly different ways. Ambidextrous says it removes the off hand penalty of -20, and TWW says it makes the penalties -20/-20. SInce without either it is -20/-40, then those 2 descriptions look the same to me.

The DH errata says ambidextrous only is -10/-30, which doesn't jive with removing the -20 off hand penalty does it?

The errata does says without either abidextrous and TWW the penalty is -20/-40, and that you can do it as a full action.

I think saying you need both means that you can't have only one type and remove the penalties when attacking with both a melee and a ranged in melee. As for the wording of needing the TWW to actually DW, who knows, it's not like there aren't ambiguous other rules.

I also won't argue that flamers RAW don't need TWW. Whether a GM imposes a penalty or not is up to them. Also as I said, DW flamers isn't much better than just a single heavy flamer. Basically a heavy flamer only takes a half action to fire and the DW flamers are harder for the enemy to dodge.

So flamers are nice, but are area of effect and short in range compared to other ranged weapons. They don't do everything.

I have to say that if not all marines are trained to dual wield weapons to some degree, it would leave me head-scratching. That there are marines who simply cannot fire two bolt-pistols at a time is something that makes no sense to my humble self.

Alex

Ross seems to agree that the talent descriptions are poorly worded.

From Ross:

Any Space Marine wielding a weapon in each hand may attempt to attack
a target with both weapons.

Doing this means making two attack rolls, each at -20.

If the Space Marine has the Two Weapon Fighting Talent appropriate for
his weapons, the penalty is r educed to -10 for each attack roll.

So, base marines without any other talent are at -20/-20 while DW, since they all have ambidextrous.

I run a sniper. Extremely happy with my Space Wolf scout I might add.

Stalker pattern boltgun with stalker rounds, scout armor, chameleoline cloak, stummers, Wolf Senses, etc... means I can sneak ahead of the team and scout out the area in order to forewarn the team of incoming patrols, ambushes, whatever.

I can silently and effectively take out enemy leaders solo or co-located with hordes. I can take out the comm/vox operators, or the vox equipment itself. As the range on the stalker is 200, I try to hang out around 100m out to gain the +10 to hit from short range and this also puts me in the first range band for my deathwatch bolter, so I can quick draw it and cut loose with a full auto blast of metal storm ammo dealing decent horde magnitude damage when I need to contribute that way or am advanced upon by a horde. The stalker is my signature weapon and the reg bolter is standard kit for my tac marine. I just take the metal storm rounds as my mag of 25 reknown or less and I rarely (if ever) have to switch to that weapon, but it is very nice to have if needed.

I take stalker, hellfire and kraken ammo for the stalker (fire selector) with my normal requisition and I don't think I've ever run out of single targets to take out before our dev has mown down the hordes.

Alright, ran another session of the game, things did go smoother, were interesting. The sniper player is enjoying the game (or at least, says he is, and seems genuinely excited about his character's actions).

More accurately, when he dealt massive crit damage to an enemy officer, I looked it up in the crit table, and the hit would have caused an ammunition explosion (and thus causing the horde to test for a break, which they failed horribly). Which would then damage the surrounding horde. Guess I'll have to make sure they toss their grenades before they get gunned down.

Probably the real problem I am starting to see is the players style of play than anything. He doesn't really maneuver o the field, pretty much just stays in one spot and shoots.

Radomo said:

Shouldn't it be -30/-30? That means that a character without ambidextrous can use two weapons at -30/-50. I thought the DH rulings were -40/60, with ambidextrous it would be -30/-30, getting rid of the -20 off hand and adding +10. Then once trained in TWW, the weapon for firing in both hands is -20/-40, becoming -10/-10 with ambidextrous.

KommissarK said:

I'd say if that's the problem then challenge him with something that can get to him, or give him reason to move.

If he's perched on a roof, a horde of gargoyles flying in overhead and harassing him can encourage him to descend to a lower level to get away.

If he's tucked securely behind cover, give him an opposing sniper or just some enemy fire to erode the benefits of the cover he's behind causing him to seek better cover elsewhere.

If you're fighting nids and want to be really nasty, have a genestealer or two sneak up on him. If he sees them coming, he can reposition himself away, or maybe kill them on the way in. However, if he misses them, a genestealer in hand to hand to can really put a damper on your day. And your ability to seek out targets to snipe. If not nids, your can replace the above with Vespid and stealth suits or kroot for tau or Storm boys and Kommandos for orks. A hover vehicle full of heretics/rebels could dislodge him from a high vantage point as well.

The easiest way if they are playing a Space Marine is to remind them before the game starts that everyone is issued a standard Godwyn pattern bolter, which has full auto fire, which can at least do something against a horde.

bmaynard said:

Not to mention with Tau and organized military, if he keeps shooting they may just call in an artillery strike on his location. Pesky snipers are worth an earth shaker round or two, especially if it keeps your army from breaking.

Tidomann said:

In DH the penalties are:

no talents: -20/-40

ambidextrous only: -20/-20

TWW only: -10/-30

ambidextrous and TWW: -10/-10

ambidextrous, TWW, and gunslinger: -0/-0 (gunslinger only applies to pistols)