Charmander said:

Lol, tbh I am running out of adverbs/adjectives. And given the stat line it seems to be well deserved too. :-)

Alex

Okay, new errata is out, a lot of my ideas have been adapted in a changed manner - wonderful!

As pointed out in other threats, Bolt weapons are probably nerfed too hard. I'll probably run with the stats suggested here, especially with the old ROF. Storm Quality doesn't double hits against hordes but gives an additional chance to wound makes sure that the Heavy Bolter is of more use against hordes.

And I like the Assault Cannon with a crazy ROF of 20. Can you say Collateral Damages? I knew you could.

Everything else from the new stats will have to be examined further but it's not straying too far away from my own house rules suggested here. RoB ranged weapons not included.

In short: bump.

Alex

In another thread you mentioned how you're using errata damage with Core ROF (with some adjustments, e.g. the heavy bolter). I wondered if you had worked out a good rule for Storm given the errata, since it seems weird that a storm bolter could land as many or more rounds on a foe than a heavy bolter. As many might be OK, but more leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

There isn't an ideal solution to this. What you could do is redefine storm to mean that you can make a full move and shoot auto or something like that. That would be tabletop style and would also fit how its use get described in the fluff. It's not called storm bolter for nothing.

Or you could simply use bolter stats but up the damage based on the assumption that always two bolts hit the same targets and therefore the affects can be coalesced into one damage roll. Maybe it would do just an additional d10 then. So 2d10+9, I believe. SImple solution and it makes the storm bolter no better against hordes than a normal bolter.

On second thought I'd probably do both those things to change the SB.

Alex

You could use, as I think someone suggested before, Twin Linked for the storm bolter- you get a bonus to hit and potentially increase the RoF by 1.

The move and fire is interesting - that with the removal of the x2 hits and you create a nice niche weapon that gives people different reasons to pick it up aside from more hits. It has definite value, but different value.

We've had a debate about the storm bolter over a year ago and someone said that the main purpose of the storm bolter was storming actions - moving in and firing. And that's what the weapon does in 40K TT in some ways too when you compare it to the bolter. (also it make the weapon quite good for retreat especially if you allow the weapon to be used at automatic with all Full Action moves except running, for example Tactical Advance (= Tactical Retreat).

In that case the purpose of the weapon is giving off a steady dakka.

As for Twin-Linked, the difference between TL and Storm is the distance between the two synchronized shots. With narrow distance you assume that if one shot hits the other hits automatically too. With a wider gap, you assume that if one shot hits the other (automatically) misses but that overall you have a higher chance of putting one of the two rounds on target.

So depending on one's likes one could also reinterpret Storm as TL + the move and fire bonus as suggested in this thread.

Alex

ak-73 said:

I like the "both" idea and I'd probably have it use double ammo still.

Does any weapon have Storm beside the Storm Bolter? Just thinking about balance if another weapon might fire and allow a move. And this could potentially allow a shoot-fullmove-charge attack. Which is too cool to say no to.

Kshatriya said:

The only I know of is the Devourer. There may be some others sprinkled here and there.

The Trygon in MoX's Bio-Electric attack has Storm, I know.

Charmander said:

Hm, what uses Devourers? Nid warriors, Thornback-type Carnifex, some Raveners, and the Dagon Overlord. Very dangerous to let them shoot and move, but they're also high-end units that can match Astartes, so it might be appropriate. Errata the damage of the Devourer is 1d10+9 Pen 0. Adding a d10 to that may not be that terribly overpowered, especially since any Astartes is going to negate around 16 damage minimum from any hit. If nothing else, the KT will want to be in cover fighting a carnifex/ravener/overlord regardless. Apparently a lot of posters think the nid warrior is a superdangerous opponent but I've never seen that as true in the game. *shrug*

Captain Ventris said:

This Storm rule would make their shock 3d10+2 at Pen 4. Less damage than a Magnitude 30 Horde of Fire Warriors under the errata but a Mag 30 Horde of Tau will have 9 hits max (3 semiauto shots at RoF 3) while the Trygon will have 12 hits max (though its BS of 30 means it's extremely unlikely to hit that unless it's targeting a tank or a Horde of IG).

Kshatriya said:

Honestly the base stat for the Devourer is pretty weak versus marines. The Errata for the Warrior's devourer id 1d10+9, the weapon stat block later in the errata has it ad 1d10+6. Either way you're not hurting most marines all that often. Adding a d10 makes it a half decent weapon, but still pretty weak versus Astartes.

As for the nid warrior, it's all in how you use them, what their loadout is, and how many show up for the party. Deathspitter is a better ranged weapon for them though still won't do much against Astartes with good toughness, but razor sharp will often eat through Marine Armor quite quickly.

Kshatriya said:

Depends on the profile- if it counts as autofire then it can get a range bonus and an autofire bonus (+20-+30), which means it stands a reasonable chance to hit. Still low, but with the old profile you've got a possibility you'll not wound against anyone that should be fighting larger enemies.

And FWIW, my PCs are terrified of Fire Warrior Hordes now, even when they're not shooting autofire.

Charmander said:

Yeah I meant hitting all 12 for the RoF (is that even possible)? Best case scenario, it's point-blank autofire for +50, putting its BS at 80. More likely it's in Short Range, giving it +30 for BS 50. Half chance to hit, half to fail, at most 5 hits against one Marine. Scary, but survivable/not super scary.

If a problem with storm strikes you as over-powered under different storm rules, make it twin-linked instead.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Do any of those I listed strike you as particularly too much?

Kshatriya said:

IMHO most of the things you point out feel about the same level of power, just different- which isn't significantly high. Aside from the Marines' Storm Bolter, most weapons with storm appear to be pretty meh. With the change I think you'd not significantly impact enemies, and you'd make the SB for Marines a unique choice with situational benefits rather than a go-to choice.

Okay long reply and firefox crashed. :sadface:
Now the short version: upping the damage seems too much (don't forget that ROF acts as damage multiplier). It makes the weapon be HB strength and that is a S5 weapon. See the post that started this thread for comparison.

The problem with the SB is that (old) fluff and crunch contradict each other and you get to pick what to believe:

1. The SB supposedly is two bolters which fire "in unison". That would imply simply what Storm models: when you get struck once, you actually get struck twice. So FFG clearly sided with the old fluff.

2. In the crunch (and the 5E codex) the SB is simply a more mobile form of bolter. That suggests that the 2 bolts aren't fired in unison but actually in rapid, synchronized succession.

A further interesting piece of information is that the SB is considered heavy equipment. The weight in DW is probably quite inappropriate. When the Storm Bolter made its appearance (see 40K RT Compendium) it was said that the power of the TDA allowed to wield these heavy weapons without penalty. Now that bit of fluff got lost over the editions but it's interesting to remember. The least one should do is significantly increase the weight.

So you get to pick which interpretation you prefer (I prefer move and shoot in some form, so come down the other side of the fence than FFG).

Lastly an :awesomeface: idea of mine was to give the SB some kind of bonus in conjunction with Bolter Assault attack pattern. The idea of synergy between a weapon that seems to be made for a specific squad mode ability is quite intriguing. Maybe a bonus when doing it with the SB or maybe you can always do/join a Bolter Assault with the SB. Something like that.

Alex

I'm not sure that always giving a marine access to a pretty good attack pattern is the best idea. Seems to me that the Squad Modes are balanced around certain roles. If you take a heavy-defense Squad Mode like Oath of Knowledge, you're doing so knowing that you have no access to attack patterns outside of the Chapter patterns of your Kill-Team, which influences your tactics and approach to combat during the mission. Having a weapon give access to an attack pattern kinda skews the balance.

I think adding d10 of damage might be too much, but I'm not sure. Charmander has a point that the non-marine weapons with Storm are already pretty weak, and I think that adding damage to the Trygon's attack in light of its low to-hit isn't a bad idea. On one hand, a storm bolter doing another d10 is likely going to hit harder than a heavy bolter against solos (at a lower Pen); on the other, if you remove the RAW Storm rule, you'll likely have fewer hits (and thus the storm bolter will be inferior vs. hordes). And non-heavy bolters are already preferred against nid solos since heavy bolters suck when loaded with Hellfire.

Assuming a change to the heavy bolter to RoF of -/-/8, and keeping a pre-errata RoF of the storm bolter for S/2/4, you're looking at a max of 8 x (1d10+12) vs. 4 (2d10+9) or 168 max non-RF-proccing raw damage vs 4 x (2d10+9) or 108 max non-RF-proccing raw damage (i.e. all rolled dice come up as 9).

If you have average damage (d10s rolling 5s), max damage for the heavy is 136, while the storm caps at 76. Pretty reasonable.

On a more average damage roll for one single bolt (say all d10s rolling 5), you have 17 damage for the heavy bolter and 19 for the storm, though that assumes only 1 bolt from each weapon hits (unlikely for the most part).

That last seems a little close. Maybe it would help if the heavy had another point of Pen?

Oh, one issue I see with the "move and autofire" thing for storm bolters is that it steps on--and is better than--the default Solo Mode of the White Scars.

I'm thinking of saying "movement allowed by this Quality is in addition to any movement available to the character through other means, such as Solo and Squad Mode abilities." So a White Scar in Solo Mode could do full-auto then make a Full Move and a Half Move at Rank 1, or two Full Moves at Rank 7. Or someone using Bolter Assault could Charge, make a Standard Attack with the Storm Bolter, then make a Full Move.

It'd definitely make combatants move around more. Not sure whether enhanced movement is strong-to-the-point-of-broken or just a strong, cool power to have.

White Scars ability is better because it allows you to shoot (before and) after moving. So you pop out of cover, shoot, then move into cover again, JSJ Crisis Suit Style.

Although Full-/Semi-Auto don't explicitly specify the sequence of moving and shooting. But I have always run it as moving first then shooting. Either way you cannot continuously pop out of and back into cover with it.

And don't up the HB, for emperor's sake. Don't give it additional Pen or more ROF. ROF 7 is the absolutely maximum or you'll cry over your dead master-tiers. Another reason for why the HB should have ROF 6, look at the thread-starting post. Also ROF is a terrible, terrible damage mulltiplier. Everything that gives a bonus to Pen or Damage suddenly becomes huge.

Alex

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you say in another thread that you didn't use either the high Core or the low errata RoF for the heavy bolter but something in between instead?

In that case stacking the Storm assault rule with the Scars solo mode would allow them to do the pop in and out move? Or do you mean they can already do tha (I guess they can at a penalty under the autofire rules). I maybe like the notion that the Storm weapon requires you to move towards an enemy rather than truly having a ton of by-your-leave tactical movement options but I also like the idea of lots of tactical movement too.

I'm using pretty much the original ROF with the new damages because the new damages are more or less the same damages that I have proposed in the post that started this thread. The HB is an exception to this because original ROF was OP (and deviated a lot from extrapolated ROF going by first post). Assault Cannon has also been an issue if you glance through this thread.

I did advocate a ROF of 7 maximum for weeks on end before the errata came out. Can't say I have any influence on FFG but at least me and the guys at FFG arrived at the same conclusion.

What the first post of this thread is good for is provide a rough guidance for converting firearms from 40K into DW. Any ranged weapon in fact, new or old. If you got 5E stats this will give you a basis to work with and which you might want to modify and tack special rules on but it overall works sufficiently.

Alex

Yup, saw that. Very nice.

You're right, RoF 8 doesn't decrease the core problem enough. My worry is that 6 will result in damage outputs against solos less than the storm (assuming Storm gives a bonus d10 along with an "assault" rule), which would concern me.

That's why I personally would move away from adding anything to damage. This thread is about making the weapons behave more as they do in the tabletop after all. So not damage bonus but move and shoot. And perhaps the twin-linked bonus on top of it.

Alex

Kshatriya said:

Do you have any thoughts on this?

The WS solo mode does allow that already: Half Move out of cover - Standard Attack - As Swift As the Wind into cover. If you allow any movement accompanying Full Auto to take place before shooting you can Full Auto before going into cover.

Alex