Hi!

This first post is about adjusting the Damage, Penetration and ROF DW stats of Ranged Weapons to the 40k stats. I have also tried to minimize the changes to each weapon.

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The below table should help finding approximate damage equivalents:

40K Strength approximate DW Damage (not accounting for tearing, etc)

4 2d10+4

5 2d10+8

6 3d10+5

7 3d10+10

8 4d10+7

9 6d10+10, maybe 5d10+10

Pen conversion: DW Penetration is approx 2x(7-AP)

ROF conversion: DW ROF is approx 2x(40K ROF) (Rapid Fire could be considered a 40K ROF of 1.5)

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With these rough guidelines in mind, I would suggest the following changes:

Astartes Ranged:

Plasma Gun: add d10 damage
Meltagun: add d10 damage

Heavy Bolter: damage 2d10+8, ROF 6 (to make the Assault Cannon better in comparison)
Boltgun: damage 2d10+4 (keeping a greater distance to the Heavy Bolter damage)

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Tyranids Ranged:

Barbed Strangler: add d10 damage
Stranglethorn Cannon: add 2d10 damage (btw, this has to be a typo - the SC needs to have a d10 or so more than the BS)
Deathspitter: add d10 damage, add storm quality (or double ROF)
Devourer: add 1d10 damage, reduce ROF to 4 (or strip storm quality)
Fleshborer: add d10 damage
Heavy Venom Cannon: add d10 damage

(NOTE: some of this this might make hordes too deadly - GM might consider adding
d10 less than suggested for hordes with special exemplars (independent beings
who are not part of the horde wrt game mechanics) gaining the full damage
bonus.

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Tau Ranged:

Plasma Rifle: make Pen 10, perhaps ROF3
Missile Pod: add d10 damage (perhaps 2d10), make ROF 4
Burst Cannon: add d10 damage , make ROF 6
Pulse Weapons: add d10 damage

(NOTE: see note on Tyranid weapons. Also: some of the Tau weapons are not only a
bit underpowered they also have no tearing unlike the bolter. This might justify
giving them the additional d10.)

Any thoughts? What to do with the Assault Cannon under this configuration?

Alex

I´m going with youre changes...

Must say i hate the storm quality. how do you deal with it it? (I just dubble the rof...)

2 (4) more questions:

1. do you ad 1d10 to all melta and plasma weapons? how do you deal with plasma on full power?

2. Storm bolters have allways been my favo weapon in the 40k universe (for marines, not terminators) but i dont like the rules. how to deal whit it? and how to incorperate a fire selector?

thanx

I plan to add 1D10 to the gun and pistol versions so that they catch up to the heavy versions. Plasma should probably be left as it is, while melta should add 1D10 to penetration, not damage, at short range. For simplicity's sake they have added it to damage, I may or may not keep it that way. Adding it to Penetration instead shouldn't slow down the game too much.

Alex

I'm going to go ahead and play test a few different configurations of the assault cannon.

I post my findings. :-P

The first is:

RoF: -/-/10 ; Dmg: 3d10+5 X ; Pen 6 ; Clip: 200; Special: Tearing

Second:

RoF:-/-/10 ; Dmg: 3d10 X ; Pen 6 ; Clip: 400 ; Special: Tearing, Razor Sharp, Storm

Third:

RoF:-/-/100 ; Dmg: 1d10 R ; Pen 6 ; Clip: 1000 ; Special: Felling, for every 1 by which you beat the Test one more round hits.

ok so the last one is a joke

Zandarthis said:

:-)

Anyway my current thinking is this: RoF: -/-/8 ; Dmg: 3d10+6 I ; Pen 6 ; Clip: 200; Special: Tearing, Razor Sharp

Explanation: If I give the Heavy Bolter ROF 6, the AC will outfire it in exact proportions to the TT Damage needs to be that high because the individual shot needs to do more damage than one of the HB as well. Razor Sharp is the equivalent for Rending. However it's by far easier to have 2 degrees of success under full-auto fire than in melee. So I would consider doubling the amount needed with ranged attacks. Thus: at least 4 DoS for doubled Pen.

That'd be a pretty deadly and fairly faithful representation of the Assault Cannon. If you can playtest it, please let me know of the results.

Alex

So did you use statistics to equate rules changes between the systems or just pick changes you felt were appropriate?

Suijin said:

No, instead I have been aiming in my original post at smoother progression (strength/damage, AP/Pen, ROF) that is more comparable to 40K.

Alex

Ah, I was thinking of whipping up a chart for it. Fairly easy to get a median damage (or array with all damages for comparison) even with tearing to compare percentages.

I guess invulerable save would be equivalent to dodge.

One of the bigger issues in comparison is the order in which you take damage is different between the 2 systems. Armor helps you first in DW and later in the tabletop. There would have to be a threshold decided in there somewhere for taking a wound/dying.

Maybe if I get time next week. I have some basics for it already done, mostly need to fine tune and compile all the info.

ak-73 said:

I after preliminary testing even 4 DoS isn't quite right for Razor Sharp. It implies that every shot then rips through. So that means its time for a new Weapon Special Quality-

Fell Velocity: Some weapons shoot super sharp or dense ammunition at very high velocities indeed. Even the heavier armours have a chance of being pierced by such a shot. For every two degrees of success on the Ballistics Skill Test a signal extra hit doubles its armour penetration and treats the target as having a Toughness Bonus of 15 if it would normally be higher than that.

This kind of captures the lower chance of TT rending and also its ability to wound regardless of toughness. Thoughts?

Zandarthis said:

I figured that would be the case (needing a new quality) which is why I didn't make up the stats in my topic starter.

To my ears it sounds more accurate but too complicated. Most Weapon Quality's mechanics are very easy to remember. An easier way would be something like this: if the to-hit roll is a double (a la Unfettered Focus Power Test) all hits have the Felling(1) Quality and gain +4 Pen. (Or something like that, I didn't think the exact numbers fully through.)

If you roll an 11, that is then like rolling a couple of 6s to wound in 40K.

The main point is that the degrees of success are already used for something else (numbers of shots that hit). That's why one has to come up with another resolution aspect, I think.

Alex

An nice thought! i'll test it to

We don't mix tabletop with rpg but we have tested very similar weapons modifications to better balance normal bolter superiority, as for our experience:

RoF 6 on HvyB dont work, weapon lack "omph" quality to normal bolter after such change. Devastator prefered storm bolter after such change.

Assault Cannon we have given little upgrade, its RoF its now 16, but every DoS gives hit with 2 bullets not 1. (sadly AC was used only once in our games, our devastator prefered storm bolter with ammo backpack)

Plasma weapons have bonus flat +8 to damage to re compensate its insane point cost if compared to much better bolt equivalents. (before house rule nobody even tried plasma pistol except Dark Angel, but he was using bolt pistol with special ammo, plasma was just for show)

Melta weapons already deal aditional d10 on short range, and 3d10+8 pen 13 is already big damage, range sux thou.

and all Bolt weapons have now Pen 4.

and one interesting thing... Lascannon is used as precision sniper rifle by our team.

But we are adopting your weapon tables for fast and easy xeno weapon converting. thank You u saved us much game time

just my 2 cents.

boruta666 said:

Ah yes, the accursed Storm Bolter spoiling this set-up. Thanks for pointing that out.

The Storm Bolter is more powerful in DW than in 40K. So if one would want to resemble the TT more, one would have to nerf it but unfortunately then it gets awkward. One could rule Storm quality means that for every shot hitting an additional 50% hits are being made for a total of 1.5x (rounding up). It just seems awkward to do it that way - but it could work.

As for the Lascannon, well, yes. Unlike the tabletop, there is nothing keeping you from picking out enemy leaders all the time.

Thanks for the input.

Alex

SB in TT is also very powerfull weapon, twice better on max range than boltgun, SB Assault 2 vs Boltgun Rapid Fire, difference is truly great.

but implementing those bonuses rules from TT plain sux.

boruta666 said:

True. I would like to point out that the ROF in 40K is double in the best of all possible cases and identical otherwise. That's why I thought 1.5 would be a fair approximation. It's just not as nice a mechanic as doubling the number of hits.

Alex

boruta666 said:

I'd like to inquire about this - the HB is still 5 points better on damage and 1 point on Pen. Against Master-class enemy that can make a huge difference (6x# of hits points). Also against hordes storm bolter still does max 5 points damage while HB would do 8 with ROF 7. With Unrelenting Devastation and Metal Storm the difference gets even more significant.

So my question: are you sure Storm Bolter is better in this set-up? I am not sure. Any experiences?

Alex

experience ? yes. My team (im gm) Space Wolf Devastator witch is now rank 8 and how he chose his weapon load.

SB hits twice per DoS, u need only 3/4 DoS to use all its destructive power (4 is for bolter drill) and u have 8/10 bullets that hit.

HB need s 9 Dos to get full usage of Full-auto burst.

i know that geting BS roll of 100 is cake walk sometimes, but still HB is much more dependant on how well u rolled on BS, while SB need less luck and that mean more damage on averange.

Not to mention that u could go nuts and use two SB at same time. (i would not allow such thing, but rules don't say no)

boruta666 said:

But the HB has more damage and as each additional point multiplies by the number of hits which is significant. And like I said - against hordes the SB shouldn't hit twice per DoS but once.

Alex

in that case may math be your friend:

2* 2k10+5 pen 5 vs 2d10+10 pen 6 per one DoS... only if u scored more than 3 DoS HB becomes slightly better.

and we talk about rules by book, i suppose u made tons of house ones just like us.

also:

SB have other modes of fire than Full-Burst, witch is greatest flaw of HB.

SB isnt Heavy weapon, u can have other weapon in 2nd hand, like 2nd SB or some melee weapon to defend yoursealf in close combat, 2h heavy weapon joined to backpack ammo supply by ammo feed and power cables is kind of totally unwieldly.

HB is only better vs Hordes, and not much better.

boruta666 said:

Well, example (lots of rough approximations follow):

You're fighting against a Hive Tyrant. Disregarding specialty ammunition the storm bolter will do on average 2 x 1 pts of damage per hit, probably 4 of them; total: 8. The Heavy Bolter is likely to have many hits against a being of that size, probably about 5. Each hit does on average about 5 pts of damage for let's say 25 points of damage total. Only with Hellfire ammo the SB will do as well as the HB.

Daemon Prince? Pretty much the same. Storm Bolter will need specialty ammunition here too but this time the Hellfire isn't as useful. Let's try Kraken:

SB - I'd say about 2x3 pts of damage, total 24?

HB - with about 5 hits of 8 pts of damage, it won't do worse.

I would say that the HB has a slight edge against master-class enemies (as the SB can struggle to do any damage) and a clear edge against hordes. And quite frankly that sounds about right.

Alex

Candidate for Assault Cannon stats:

Assault Cannon (40k Tabletop pattern, not novels pattern)
Class Mounted Range 150m RoF -/-/20 Dmg 3D10+6 Pen 6 Clip 400 Rld 3Full Special Rending(new)* Wt 80 Req 30 Renown Famed

*Rending (new Weapon Quality): Treat the weapon as having the qualities Tearing, Devastating(1), Felling(1). Also the weapon gains +1 Penetration per shot of a burst hitting.

Also todo:

- verify if bolters need to be nerfed by another point or so given the amount of talents/abilties/gear that increase damage and given that ROF works as a multiplier of any increase/decrease of some sort.

- possibly adjust plasma cannon and thus possibly multi-melta too. With the right ammo and talents the HB can still outdo both possibly.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Let us know how the playtests go!

One comment, I'd suggest changing out the name Rending for something such as "Overwhelming" (how many variations on devetating, devestator, tearing, rending, etc. can we get?! We're running out! ) simply because Damage Type of Rending, at least in my experience, is already confusing enough - people seem to forget it equates to a damage type/class rather than a special weapon quality (usually they equate it with tearing).

Ah yes, the damage type, I forgot. Well my name is based on the 40K TT weapon type. I'd call it flesh rending but that is already used too... so let's call it Rupturing then.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I love the visual this conjures