Its one of those things. You can't hold the 2nd HW and your battle brothers are going to be too busy carrying their gear to carry yours. Only a Bolter can be maglocked to your side and a bolt pistol has a holster. HW's need to be carried.

DrgnScorpion said:

Thats fine, especially if it is how you have ruled it, I am just curious if it is explicitly stated in the rules? Presumably there is some way to sling a heavy bolter in case the devastator needs both hands, or just to carry it around in general. This sling could also be used if they wanted to carry an extra HW, or just say strap one to the backpack somewhere with the second one not having a backpack feed.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Considering by fluff they can flip vehicles, By game stats a space Marine regularly has a strength bonus of 10 in their power armor. Seems like an extra heavy weapon wouldn't slow them down all that much if they really wanted to have one.

Is it common sense to only have one? Sure, but players and RPGs rarely operate on common sense.

Delahunt said:

Well, have them pick up the chair they are sitting in at the next game. Then tell them to pick up and carry the chair next to them as a backup. That should be a good example of why you can't carry two heavy weapons.

play a spacehulkesque mission or two, then call the devs OP.

I would say the dev can mag-clamp (I have the marines in my game use the same thing for the poster who said it first since it's in the fluff) his heavy weapon to his backpack. You can't quick-draw heavy weapons, so it takes him a half action to get it up and back there or back down (general thought is, bolter mag-clamps to thigh for "holstering" purposes).

ItsUncertainWho said:

Right, the problem is that a space marine in armor is about 10' tall and 5' across the shoulders, and strong enough to flip a tank, or at least a small truck. Carrying two chairs, or even two chair sized objects, is a lot easier for them than it would be for us.

Average person has a strength bonus of 2 (as in 2X strength), really really strong person (like say an Ork) has a 4 (4X), average space marine in power armor is looking at a 10 (strength of 4X -> Unnat Strength *2 -> + Power Armor Bonus) that is 2.5 times higher than a REALLY strong person or the Orks we have stats for in Creatures Anathema.

I am going to assume though that the rules don't explicitly state you can't, and this is how you've house ruled. Which is fine, it is how I am doing things too. I just wanted to know if it was explicitly stated, because the actual carrying of 2 heavy weapons won't slow down a Strength Bonus 8-10 person all that much.

Ah... two normal chairs wouldn't be a problem. But as has been discussed on numerous occasions on the boards, Asartes weapons are larger (and more effective) than 'mortal-sized' ones.

So the guy in power armour would be carrying two power-armoured-Asartes-sized chairs...

The problem with carrying 2 heavy weapons is that, as standard, all DW heavy weapons come with backpacked ammunition supply, so, while you could carry 2 heavy weapons, you can't have 2 packpacks. Not a big problem if your backup heavy is a missle launcher (which is the only heavy weapon that doesn't use a backpack ammo supply), but a 'backup' lascannon would require someone else to tote the ammo around for you.

BrotherHostower said:

While the missle launcher doesn't use the backpack ammo supply per-se, you end up with a marine with a missle launching rack on his back with a little mechanical arm that's moving around jamming missles into the tube for you (page 152: "special missle rack and auto-loader to a backpack power unit").

As for carrying heavy weapons, the heavy weapon description simply states you must have two hands to fire the weapon, but nothing about being issued more than one heavy weapon.

BrotherHostower said:

Dipole Mag-Lock description is describes as pistol or basic ranged weapon, or any melee weapon that may be wielded in one hand. There was a full thread on where marines put their stuff, and the mag-lock description answers it for me in my games as it reads "mag-locks are as common as holsters for securing weapons" then goes on to describe why the dipole ones are cooler.

In general I don't let my marines magnetize heavy weapons in my games, they must be strapped or put down, or they can be 'let go of' for a while if you've equipped a suspensor. The though of a marine being flexible enough to reach behind him, grab his heavy weapon off of his powerpack which is also covered by an ammo hopper, is a feat I have a hard time picturing.

Delahunt said:

I can't find an official book ruling on the matter, but from the way HWs are described I've only been allowing one in my games. It just doesn't make sense to me that they could carry two and not be encumbered/restricted. I guess it may turn out to be a house rule, to me it just made sense.

The chair example isn't that bad of one- it's not the weight that's at issue here (at least to me) it's the size, shape, and leverage required. Now a man with a 2x strength bonus is picking up a 3kg chair, and the marine with a 10x bonus is picking up a 68kg heavy bolter, a full 22 times heavier. The weight aside (I'm not even concerend with that personally, you'll be hard pressed to put a dent in a SM's carry limit), the issue I see is of awkwardness. It's annoying to carry extra stuff with pokey bits on it, especially on the outside of an already oversized ammo backpack, and not have an impact on running, dodging, ducking, crawling, shooting, hopping, flying, etc.

Charmander said:

I find it sad that you seem to be the only person to grasp the point I was trying to make with the chair analogy. Volume and bulk is at issue, not weight.

The fact that a marine in power armor, with power supply, ammo hopper, and a missile launcher would be in the range of 6-7 feet thick, ungainly to say the least, seems to be missed by some. It is their choice though.

www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp

Look at any of these guys. Now, ehere exactly would they stow away a second heavy weapon and easily move, shoot or do just about any thing. Like others have said, weight is not the issue, but bulk.

@Delahunt

I don't have my rulebook with me, so I cannot verify if the following is indeed true, but my memory is decent so we'll see.

In one of the sections on requisitioning, either the armoury, or the GM section on giving out req points, there is a section about what players are allowed to requisition. Its the section where the hammerspace notion of "marines have as much ammo as they need for the mission" comes from. Around there, should be some mention of how weight is not the issue, but volume/storage capacity. I am almost certain that it instructs the GM to generally not allow two heavy weapons on one character, or heavy + basic weapons, or an absurd amount of basic weapons (oh, I have a melta, flamer, plasma, combi bolter, stalker pattern and storm bolter, I got SB+TB 24, I can do it). If I find it later, I will edit with page #.

For my own reference in this, Delahunt, are you coming at this as a GM or as a player?

Back on the topic though:

While devastators can pump out a crazy amount of damage (note the "can", people far too often assume 10 degrees of success when playing with the math here, at absolute best, that can only happen 45% of the time (75 bs (dark angels +5, +20 from advances, 50 base) + 60 (max situational modifier), but again, that is assuming the absolute best conditions), I do not see how dealing more damage alone makes them "better." Combat is one facet of the game. While yes, it does consume probably one of the largest sections rules and mechanics wise, it is hardly the only aspect of the game. Note that half the book is also devoted to describing the imperium, the deathwatch, the inquisition, and the Jericho reach. I think it is entirely fair to have a class that focuses on ranged damage alone, even if means they can take out most any single enemy in 1-2 rounds. Combat in the 40k rpg line has always been particularly deadly (as well it should be), and the main thing to note is that NPCs are also quite capable of killing PCs if they play like morons. Sure the devastator is nice, but get him surrounded in CC by say, genestealers or chaos marines, or stuck in the middle of a gaunt horde, and his effectiveness disappears. The players should simply understand that it is the role of the devastator to deal such damage, and to understand that their own specialties have their own purposes.

As far as being a GM goes, if the devastator seems to be doing too well, take a hint from the chaos space marines from Dawn of War:

"Enemies, we need enemies,"

throw more hordes at them, and eventually the devastator can't deal with them all. If the big bad evil guys at the end seem to be going down to fast, make the sidekick henchmen a bit beefier and a larger threat to the party. Try to develop situations where you are not enabling the devastator to just say "I stand there and full auto" on turn one. Throw some sort of threat that he knows he can't deal with to force him to make a decision on turn one. Maybe not have things always be "kill the xenos/heretics/daemons," perhaps they need to get to the thunderhawk before it leaves, but make it such that he would have enough time to fire a few times, just make it a matter of good target selection/good rolls/wise times to pause and fire while running to the evac thunderhawk.

If all else fails, let the players enjoy their victory. No need to try and guarantee a challenge that particular game, just learn from your mistakes and make sure it doesn't happen the same way again.

TL;DR

Delahunt, use common sense/it should be in the book, look harder.

Devastators are not OP, shape the encounter to account for their presence/ RPGs should not come down to straight damage per round.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Because these people have soft hands, and don't have to do manual labor?

Not like I'm one to talk here, typing on a keyboard rather than doing work...

Something interesting I did note while reading through the book the other day is that they seem to heavily imply that each brother will only carry one main weapon into battle (heavy or basic), but they never state this outright. When looking at the req and looking at weapon descriptions (came across this looking at combi-weapons for the other thread) they talk about the idea of having secondary battle weapons as silly, saying things like "where would you even carry it?"

My personal feel on this is they left it out to A) allow each game to more easily craft their team's load outs, and/or B) it just made so little sense for someone to try and carry two heavy weapons or twin standard bolters that they didn't think it was necesary to say. If B), IMHO that's just silly, these are gamers we're talking about here, and if it's not written or written with an an open ended statement someone will debate it (perhaps rightly so).

KommissarK said:

I am the GM, and mostly I am playing Devil's Advocate. I am trying to run my game as 'by the book' as I possibly can, and haven't seen a rule like that, so when people started saying "you can't do this" I was curious if they had found it. The rules of the book don't care about the bulk for carrying, they care about the weight, which is a problem. I agree on a realistic bend that bulk is the bigger issue (carrying two king sized blankets is 'easier' weight wise than carrying your average chair, but a pain in the butt for bulk), but it isn't something the game seems to care about, nor is the 40k universe very realistic.

My players are keeping to common sense with their stuff as well. The Devastator is only going in with his heavy bolter, and I allowed him to swap out his bolt pistol for an astartes shot gun. If they need other heavy weapons, other people req and carry them.

So, sorry if I pissed someone off. And thanks for the person who gave me a section to re look at for the rule if it is there. I get carried away a lot when I am trying to do devil's advocate. I also don't like weight based encumbrance so *shrug*

So, I found it. There is nothing in the req section that mentions this exactly, other than the fact that the mission authority (i.e. the GM) gets to decide what they can and cannot take. You could, in theory, pool your resources and buy a bazillion heavy bolters if you had enough req.

However, carrying stuff is detailed in the carry capacity section. You have to read the whole thing, not just the table (like most of us do once we think we understand the rules). See page 208 (emphasis mine): " Common sense can serve as a guide for most purposes. In general, most characters can reasonably carry one main weapon [...] plus one or two secondary weapons [...] plus a few clips of extra ammo and several pieces of miscellaneous equipment..." It then goes on to say " it would not at all be reasonable for a character (even a very strong one) to be walking around with three different heavy weapons... " And yes, a rules lawyer could argue the text doesn't say two heavy weapons, it says three, but then you can slap said rules lawyer right in the mouth with the words "common sense", and tell him he (she?) has none.

From my own recent experiences running the game for the first time...

Yeah, at first the Devastator does seem overpowered. Even with a heavy bolter, during one lucky shot, the KT's dev pumped out around 150 damage against a Tyranid warrior. The poor thing didn't even have chance to say, "lol, wtf!" before it was sticky purple paste!

For a lot of other players, it might seem like their own weapons are pitifully inadequate when measured up next to the heavy bolter. But, when you take into account the disadvantages already listed in this thread, there is a balance.

1. Ammo supply. Unless there is some way for the KT to resupply (say a second droppod carrying ammo), the Dev will eventually run out of ammo, and have to rely on a pistol, knife and sharp sticks. What are the chances an Imperial Guard garrison has Astartes bolter ammo in its armoury?

2. Close combat. At this range, the Dev is forced to relinquish the heavy weapon and draw blade and pistol. Neither of which are really sufficient to kill a Shrike or Warrior in a single round, meaning the Dev is likely to take some damage. Tactically, the team's heavy weapon is also effectively out of action, and not firing at the swarm.

I have decided, after a lot of deliberation, to have players keep count of their ammo. This adds a bit of book-keeping to the game, but it also adds a new layer of tactical depth, and a military game needs a lot of extra realism details to keep it from becoming a hack n' bolter slugfest. Keeping count of ammo requires the players to sometimes think outside the box, and approach many situations tactically, forming plans etc etc.

I'm still trying to figure out what a 'standard load' would be for a bolter. I'm thinking maybe 6-10 clips for a standard boltgun, 3-5 for a bolt pistol. That's about 240 round of bolter ammo for a standard KT. Seeing as how they are an elite, last-minute, troubleshooter unit, that seems like a logical amount of ammo. At least to me. I also plan to change the system as the situation warrants. If the drama and story of a scene benefit from not counting ammo expenditure, then I'll do that. Whatever makes for a better session.

So far though, the game is running well, and I had a team consisting of Dev, Tactical, Apothecary and Assault, running the Extraction mission to get used to the game. We had a great time. The team took up good positions for the final battle, with Apothecary and Tactical overwatching a gate as the Tyrant and horde swarmed the compound, first riddling the area with bolter fire and flaming anything that got through. The Dev took high ground on a building and hosed the swarm to thin them a little, and the Space Wolf Assault maring simply jump-packed right into the middle in true Space Marine style. The Tyrant was finally brought low by the Tactical maring (team leader) who gutted the charging beast with his chainsword. Which was good, considering his own sacred bolter had refused to even function throughout the entire mission!

So, yeah, back to the point: Dev's are overpowered, but balanced also.

As regards ammunition load-out, Space Marines are assault troops, and nothing blazed through ammunition like that kind of work. Even disciplined troops using semi-auto fire will still blaze through 300 rounds easily during an assault. As for the three frag grenades... well that's pretty absurd too, and is enough to clear just three rooms!

So: 300 bolt rounds for a tactical marine. Certainly. And they'll be carrying more if they can, too! And if they're assault marines with no need to carry bolter ammunition, then they should be carrying additional grenades and heavy weapon ammunition for the rest of the team.

korvass said:

From my own experience the Dev isn't over powered, you just need to know how to handle him. Multiple swarms from multiple angles is one way. Mixing in big guys with the small guys also helps. The devastator comes off of the swarm, and suddenly the whole kill team is in melee with an overwhelming horde of hormagaunts.

The biggest problem is getting used to the power level of Deathwatch. These aren't starting characters. They're epic level characters, and do epic level things. That means you need to hit them with epic level problems. The first mission, the Devastator was completely out of ammo in my game for the last 1/4 of the game, which turned into a lot of fun for the group as suddenly ammo was an issue for them, and those swarms were getting close mighty fast. In the most recent mission, I distracted with a swarm of gaunts, then had a shrike swoop down and engage the Dev in close combat. Both situations he was out of play because the bad guys used some planning. I honestly can't wait to see how my players deal with the Tau snipers they're going to be coming up against soon.

On the ammo, the book says 'enough' not infinite, which I took to heart. Standard loadout for the PCs in my game gives 5 mags for their main gun (+ the one in the gun for 6 total), and 2 mags for their side arm (+ the one in the gun again). By modern day load out standards it is a bit light (Combat load for a marine is something like 12-14 mags) but it is balanced by the fact that in an RPG bullets aren't wasted as much, every shot is aimed with the intent to kill. None of this 'try to pin or keep him from shooting me' stuff happens. For particularly combat heavy missions (when they know it is going to be combat heavy) I'll up the amount of basic mags they have. Oh, the Heavy Bolter gets the backpack + 3 spare drum mags for itself.

Finally, most devastating thing I've seen against 'nids is a Storm Bolter with hell fire rounds. Nothing like 4 degrees of success knocking 16 mag off a horde. Even the dev needs 8 degrees and to be in squad mode to do that.

Delahunt said:

Huh? How is the math for the Storm Bolter?

Alex

By the way, Marines carry four clips of ammunition as a standard loadout iirc. I wholeheartedly support making players keep track of ammo. It makes them think about what they are doing, and whether or not to really mow down that cultist with full auto, or use a single bullet, or, Emperor forbid, use that spiffy combat knife.

Fenrisnorth said:

I likes me my combat knife. It is so shining and sharp and pretty when drenched in the viscera of the enemies of Man.

-=Brother Praetus=-

ak-73 said:

I think he is incorrectly adding in the extra mag damage hellfire rounds cause (which iirc is +1, per attack , not hit). So the math used in the example is:

Assume max hits, as thats what everyone does, 4, storm, so double that in actual hits, 8, +1 mag damage per hit from hellfire (the mistake), 16.... But then that would be forgetting the +1 for X damage, unless I am wrong about the particular mistake being made... Bolter drill is not being considered, as he said 4 DoS (or is it, as technically, the base success is not a "DoS", right?), in that case, 5 hits, 10 from storm, +1 from X, 11, plus... 5 from somewhere, can't be hellfire alone, and I don't recall any talents that give bonus to mag damage on this order, unless he is also using that storm of iron or whatever.... lets see,

4 hits (x2 from storm, but actually x3 due to how storm of iron would work), 12, +1 from X, 13, +1-2 (can't remember now) from hellfire, still not high enough. And if bolter drill is also used, the result is too high

5 (x3) +1 (X damage) = 16 + amt from hellfire > 16

Once again, this is just a pissing contest though, it really isn't necessary to obsess over how much damage one's character can pump out.. Whats far more important is the general technique being used. Like don't use stalker patterns against hordes.

KommissarK said:

I would not double the hits against hordes from Storm quality though. Two bolt rounds striking practically the same point (the same creature) is similar enough to the dual shot talent and that's why I would count that only as 4 hits against a hordes maximum (each hit would have two chances to overcome Toughness and Armour though). Now twin-linked Heavy Bolters would be sth different because there is a more significant gap so we can assume two different enemies might have been hit.

Call it a house rule but that's how I plan on running it.

Alex