Hi there,

Just wondering if anyone else has see a player playing a Tactical Marine always request a Heavy Weapon? I feel it somewhat cheapens the role of the Devastator.

Am I overreacting or is this a common problem?

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

- The KT's Watch Captain can always so 'No' if he has good reason.

- I have no problem with it, the Devastator should be the better shooter thanks to his talents, nonetheless. Besides the Devastator in DW isn't the Heavy Weapons guy; it's the shooty guy who usually picks heavy weapons. Can be run as a sniper though too. The Tactical can only compete with the Dev if he picks Bolter Expertise and the Heavy Bolter anyway.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Actually, after picking up Cleanse and Purify at Rank 3, the Tactical can do wonders with a Heavy Flamer too. Here the slower BS advance and lessened access to the shooty Talents makes little difference.

HappyDaze said:

Yes but flamer is firstly anti-horde weapon and a Dev with unrelenting devastation and metal storm ammo (and storm of iron) should outshoot him there. Devastator also get relevant shooting skills often 1 or 2 ranks earlier, thus should stay a bit ahead of the game. Not to mention that the cheap BS can have an impact using other weaponry.

But Tacticals can be competent shooters, no doubt.

Alex

Whats also scary is that Tac marines get another talent, hip shot I think, that becomes awesome for moving and shooting things like lascannons or missile launchers on the move.

But balance wise, I don't see how a tac marine would really "outshine" a devastator. Did they take bolter mastery and use a heavy bolter? That has nothing on unrelenting dev when it comes to fighting hordes.

Cleanse and purify + heavy flamer certainly is good, but it won't be long before the devastator gets that too. The tax marine really is a generalist, with the option of getting good at quite a few things, but rarely being the "best."

If you really want to force his hand, add in some sort of mission requirement that nobody has, but that the tac marine might be able to do if he didn't take a heavy weapon (not sure what, maybe demolitions use).

Remeber that the enemy can have jump packs too, a few orks with jump packs forcing that tactical marine into melee might have him reconsider a differant choice. If he is higher lvl an eldar harliquen might be more his speed, ect.

KommissarK said:

By the Emperor, you will PAY!!!

HappyDaze said:

I see what you did there.

Beware the Emperor's general accountant!

Remember that, even in standard tactical squads, one of them can take a heavy weapon (and one a special, via standard wh40k tt rules), so there's nothing to say that the Tac marine in question didn't happen to be the heavy weapon toter for his squad.

New SM Chapter: Imperial Rending Specialists - coming to a Imperial World near you.

H.B.M.C. said:

How about being grateful that it's not an actual devestator with their double horde damage thing doing it?!

It's not really a problem, so long as the majority of the team aren't toting heavy weapons. You can always say 'no' if it's actually a problem, but the Dev marine will always simply be better at it than the tac.

Psyx said:

Not against things as nid warriors or hive tyrants, no. If the Tac takes Bolter Expertise, that is an advantage the Dev does not have.

Alex

I dont see a problem with a character using the rec. points to buy a heavy weapon. Maybe the problem is they have too many rec. points or are not taking mission essential gear. Remember no "quick drawing" heavy weapons. No fire selector for heavy bolters. Tactical Marines with bolter mastery make great snipers. The heavy bolter is a scary weapon in their hands against Big targets with Kraken rounds or hordes with metal storm.

Tactical marines are more experienced than devastator marines having completed their training in all the different disciplines. So, according to the fluff, and rather bizarrely, a tactical marine should be better at heavy weapons use than a devastator. Wierd, but there you go - thats 40k for you!!

As to the 'problem' of a tactical marine always toting a heavy weapon, whats the issue? Aside from the Tactical marine severely limiting the range of other equipment he can take?

Assuming standard mission 50RPs a heavy bolter costs 20RP (whereas the Devastator gets it for free). Thats a big chunk taken out of the other various equipment the marine can take to increase his tactical flexibility.

Design your missions so that lots of other gear will be needed and the wisdom of the tac marines choices will be sorely tested. Does +5 Dam and +1 Pen really justify taking a heavy bolter over say the multi-key and melta bomb that will be needed to access the facility they're assaulting and destroy the plasma reactor which is the target of the assault mission.

The PCs should be selecting the right gear for the right mission. Sometimes that will require everyone to tool up with heavy bolters (taking down a 'nid nest nomnoming its way through an underhive), other times not (infiltrating an ash waste dagger-rock canyon to identify, monitor, and report back on a suspected secret xenos presence there (scout armour and observation/auspex/recording gear all round)....

Of course the fun as GM is to give them enough intel in the briefing and allow them to make their own gear choices...failing missions because they're all tooled up with heavy bolters and nobody thought to bring a pict recorder to capture the images on the alien obelisk to take back to the Inquisitor for review...

Luddite said:

Yes, in the case of standard marines. No in the case of Deathwatch character classes. If you read the Deathwatch fluff then the character class taken is not what the marine used to do in their home Chapter: It's what role they are choosing to fill in the Deathwatch. (Obvious exceptions for Librarians et al)

So in game-sense, a Tac who carries a heavy weapon all the while is kinda daft: He's filling the role of a Dev in Deathwatch, so should have chosen that as his career!

Luddite said:

Not necessarily. All Tactical Marines will have been Devastators at one point, but not all Devastators are brand new, just-out-of-the-scout-company Marines - indeed, the first paragraph describing the Devastator speciality in the Deathwatch rulebook specifically notes that most Devastators in the Deathwatch are those who have already served as Tactical Marines in their parent chapter and then chosen to return to the role of Devastator, which seems like a fair assumption for any Deathwatch Marine, or indeed Astartes as a whole - while they may be trained in a certain way, once they've been trained up to Tactical Marine standard, there's nothing stopping them returning to the Assault or Devastator roles if that is where their skills best serve the Chapter.

Well, as a short reply; tactical squads have a heavy-weapons guys too... which are not officially labeled 'devastators'.

For the rest I tend to agree with the rest of the people here. Their talents and abilities are different and taking a pricey heavy weapon does limit the use of other equipment.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Hi No-1 :¬D

Indeed i made a general point about the established progression of marines through their strange and counter-intuitive training from specialist to generalist. Or is that an unfair characterisation?

Of course marines can continue in other roles, e.g. a HW-specialist in a tactical squad or becoming a specialist assault veteran.

And of course moving into the Deathwatch they can reassign themselves, and indeed once reassaigned, then requisition any gear they like.

Agreed.

But for the OP, i think the rest of my points were valid though. No?

Heavy weapons are powerful but inflexible. What happens to a SM with a heavy bolter and attached backpack when he gets jumped by genestealers? Immediately dropping the weapon could tear out his ammo feed (think of the weight involved). It's not like the bolter can be simply stowed away like a pistol or even a boltgun can be. Climbing will be a load of fun for said marine too.

Luddite said:

Well, we disagree on counter-intuitive - that depends on how you view the Tactical Marine, really. I'm quite comfortable with the idea that Tactical Marines are capable of doing anything and everything required by the situation (no weapon they can't use, no vehicle they can't operate, no situation they can't handle), rather than them being the Astartes equivalent of generic "faceless grunts". If you just see them as being an Astartes "rifleman" (and I know that many do), then the training is going to be incongruous, but it is more a matter of perspective and interpretation rather than anything else.

Luddite said:

Certainly, and that adaptability of purpose is something I encourage in my own campaign - if the situation calls for the application of ludicrous amounts of firepower, then they are welcome to take an assortment of heavy weapons, so long as they realise that this can limit their ability to take and utilise other tools and that it may not be an appropriate choice in other missions. The same can be said of any tool - Jump Packs and Bikes are currently vying for favour as my group's "delivery system of choice", for example - or indeed any resource. It's part of the reason I'm working on teaching my group the value of thinking strategically and tactically; the application of excessive violence is nothing more than a tool, rather than an end in its own right, and its up to them and nobody else exactly how, where and when that violence is applied.

Its an approach I encourage more Deathwatch GMs to take - give the players the mission, tell them how many requisition points they've got, and give them any 'essential' tools beyond that... and let them succeed or fail on the merit of their own choices, and face the consequences of their decisions in the aftermath.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I agree and support this approach, however, i'll pull back from my 'no pict-plate - you FAIL!!! Bwahahah!!' thing. I think it should certainly make things a lot harder is the PCs don't get the right load out (a key part of a 'military' game should be about applying the right tools, as you say), but perhaps an over-reliance on technology is not very 'marine'? Perhaps the underlying ability is more important than the technology don't you think? There's the old saying 'if you don't have the right tool, you'll end up using two'; perhaps this should apply, allowing the PCs to improvise a solution even if they get their loadout wrong. It'd certainly be fun.

But overall, from the OP perspective, i personally wouldn't stop any or all PCs taking a heavy bolter - but as GM, i'll find some way to make that seem like a poor idea. Requisitioning mission-critical gear is one lever to use.

I'm sure there are many other mission parameters we could come up with that would make toting a heavy bolter a less than optimal situation!!