In the description of swift attack, it says that you can use a full action to make 2 melee attacks. Then if you are using 2 melee weapon and have the 2 weapon wielder talent, you can make the swift with 1 weapon and a single attack with your other melee weapon. If you are using a melee and pistol and have the 2 weapon wielder talent, you can make the swift attack with mlee and make a single shot with the pistol.

My question is which 2 weapon wielder talent do you need to use the melee/pistol set up? 2 weapon wielder(melee), 2 weapon wielder (ballistic) or both?

DarkTemplars said:

Both. Note however that you can wield both without the talents. For more details, see the Dark Heresy errata, it has the most information on that. It has been officially confirmed that it works the same Deathwatch in the meantime.

Alex

ak-73 said:

If you don't have TWW in both melee and ballistic and are fighting with a melee and ballistic weapon, you don't count as having two weapon wielder at all.

The penalties look something like this:

• No talents: -20 with your dominant hand, -40 with off hand.
• Two Weapon Wielder (of appropriate kind, both in your example): -20/-20
• Ambidexterity: -10/-30
• TWW (of appropriate kind) & Ambidexterity: -10/-10
• Gunslinger & TWW: -10/-10 when fighting with two pistols
• Gunslinger & TWW & Ambidexterity: -0/-0 when fighting with two pistols

Why firearms get an additional talent to drive the penalty to zero and melee weapons do not, I'm not rightly certain.

Charmander said:

Hong Kong version of Rule of Cool, I guess. Anyway the DH errata has a number of other explanations too. As this has been the first 40k Roleplay errata, it is worth a quick read even for a DW GM.

Alex

ak-73 said:

It always just makes me sad in games where they entertain the concept of glorious hand to hand combat but the guy with automatic pistols still rules the day (White Wolf Games is especially guilty of this). It's probably more accurate from a simulation perspective (getting shot with 10 rounds at point blank range will probably do more than me stabbing you) but less dramatic.

But yeah, the DH erratta has a very comprehensive explanation of how these talents interact with the combat system. It's pretty good stuff.

Note, Space Marines have Ambidexterity auto.