I'm currently running bolters as follows in my RT game, where anything might pop up and shoot at my party:

Normal bolters: as written

SoB issue, 1d10+6, pen4. Matches the Sacriston (I think that's what it was) from IHB. Still reliable.

Astartes Bolter and pistol: 2d10+2, pen4. Toned down a little, but still better. I do realise technically it has the potential to do less than a normal bolter, but with tearing, it should be quite rare. The differences in armour are quite narrow, and pen is reductive, so I err on the sider of lower pen just so armour has a point.

Astartes heavy bolter 2d10+6 pen6. Still a nasty anti-personnel weapon, able to take special ammo, but not the be all and end all it seems to be right now.

All still use tearing, and all RoF is unchanged.

there is a side note in the DW book that explains the astartes equipment is on a whole different level and even explains the human equivalent are just cheaply and poorly made rip off's.

LittleHorus88 said:

That's kind of the crux of the debate over the last several pages. Not everyone agrees that non-astartes equipment should be on a different level (and the fluff regarding this, as you can see by the number of pages, is somewhat debateable).

My take on the bolter question goes as this: There are actually two (2) bolter calibres and three (3) primary types of bolter.

.50 cal Arbites Issue Boltgun/pistol: Used by Adeptus Arbites, Comissars, senior Imperial Guard officers and like. Has damage and penetration equivalent to "Storm Bolter" in Rogue Trader (2D10 X, Tearing) and is of small enough weight and construction that it can be wielded by a normal human.

.75 cal Godwyn-Deaz Boltgun/pistol: Used by Adepta Sororitas exclusively. Has damage and penetration equivalent to "Astartes Boltgun" in Deathwatch(2D10+5 X, Tearing). Has human-size grips but is too heavy to be used effectively without Power Armor enhanced strenght and recoil dampeners built into Power Armor. If used without Power Armor has penalties described in Deathwatch on using "Astartes weapons". Cannot be used effectively by Space Marines because the grips are too small for them.

.75 cal Astartes Pattern Boltgun/pistol: Used by Adeptus Astartes exclusively. Has damage and penetration of "Astartes Boltgun" in Deathwatch (2D10+5 X, Tearing). Is designed to be used by Astartes. Everyone else has penalties described in Deathwatch on using "Astartes weapons".

The logic here is that unaugmented humans using their own strenght can only use weapons designed for them, but power armor is the great "game-changer" because it allows you to wield and use power armor -size weapons. This would give Sisters same weight-class weapons as Space Marines but would still leave them considerably inferior in other respects:

- Less strenght in close-combat

- Less toughness overall

- Counts as "large target" when wearing power armor due to not having black carapace

- If Sisters power armor is damaged she can't use her power armor -grade bolter with bare hands like Astartes can

- No solo modes

- No squad modes

The nice thing here is that this way if you pit a group of Astartes against Sororitas the Sisters actually have a real chance of hurting Space Marines, but lower toughness and lack of solo and squad modes mean they must outnumber Astartes by something like 3 to 1 or more to have any real chance of victory.

When you are comparing Deathwatch Astartes to DH/RT characters its worth noting that the Astartes are not built up to be one-man-armies of stand-alone fighters. Thats not what Astartes do. Its the Squad Modes that lift them far beyond the power level of everyone else.

I am actually house ruling all my bolt weapon damage down quite a bit. Makes the game far more fun and balanced from what I've found. I am using the Rogue Trader stats but with +2 Dam and +2 Pen. The current rules for bolt weapons are just seriously overpowered.

Polaria said:

If the Sisters have Faith and the Fate Points to activate some of their abilites, they are pretty bad-ass.

kenshin138 said:

Balanced within itself or with other games?

I don't blame anyone for downsizing the weapons, depite being on the other side of the fence. What I do see as a potential issue when you modify the damage in a sweep like that is that the RAW bolter damage was designed for the RAW enemy stats for the most part. When pitting a DH or RT boltgun against a horde or a hive tyrant or what have you, you're going to reduce your chances of hurting them, which increases the chances they can kill off your PCs.

Not saying the plan is bad, it just needs to be taken into account when designing adventures.

Everything I've read about Space Marines fighting Orks- in both Black Library novels/short story collections and in the fluff in various Codicies for the tabletop game- says that orks are so resillient that even the mighty Astartes have to work hard to kill them. Probably the best example of this is the well-documented (in multiple sources) near-destruction of the famous Crimson Fists chapter at the hands of orks. So, what is the supposedly more official source that the defenders DW bolter stats are refering to that claim that Space Marines armed with bolters can kill massive numbers of orks with almost comical ease?

Adeptus-B said:

So first, if an ork could go toe to toe with a Marine, man to...ork, then wouldn't every major Waaagh! where the marines were below chapter strength result in defeat? The Waaagh! is going to contian a hell of a lot more orks than the 1000 Marines in the chapter. How would that work? The math I do on that doesn't add up, am I missing something?

Second, regarding the Crimson Fists, if I understand correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong, my info is truly limited here as I've only read the backstory on that chapter incidentally) didn't the invasion force on Rynn's World get a big leg up when over half the Fists died from friendly fire? They blew up their own monestary if I read it right, then the remaining fists held out for over a year until help arrived. If one ork was equal to one marine, or even five orks were equal to one marine, how would the force of Fists be able to tough it out that long?

It was more like 3/4 (2 companies plus 16 survivors).

Orcs are tough up close and personal, but still no match for a marine, generally. In novels they are gunned down with ease, and only pose a serious problem in numbers or as major characters. The main strength they have is vast, vast numbers.

Charmander said:

I was very, very against toning down weapon damage for a long time. However, IMHO is is the way to "fix" the combat in Deathwatch, plain and simple. I have ran countless combat simulations, and am running my current campaign using reduced bolt weapon damage.

The thought process was to make an "Astartes grade" for the weapons. This was a flat +2 Dam, +2 Pen to the weapon stats listed in Rogue Trader. This made them feel stronger, without going too over the top. I arrived at this by comparing the two weapon lists (RT to DW) and noticed that this seemed to be the average already in place, for all non-Bolt weapons. In fact, it pointed out that the Bolt weapons got buffed more than any other single weapon grade and IMHO is breaking. So, as I said, the +2/+2 seemed nice and even. It would retain the balance already in place with RT but beef it up some.

Most weapons didn/t change too much. Flame weapons got a bit better, Krak missiles took a loss, the lascannon took a 1d10 loss. Everything else lined up almost exactly. Again, save for Bolt Weapons.

The damage brings the Adversaries back into where I feel they should be. Its still very heroic, just not "kill a Hive Tyrant in one round" crazy. YMMV

kenshin138 said:

This was really all I was getting at- so long at you move from mathmatical average and try it out on the table itself, and that results in the enemies feeling right for your brand of 40k, all is well.

For sure. I ran quite a few simulations and found that I was much happier with the results. For example: A Rank 1 Deathwatch Marine is about even with a Traitor Marine (factoring in Fate Points). Whereas the same Rank 1 Deathwatch had issues against a single Tyranid Warrior. It worked out that 2 marines were a bit overkill for one Warrior, but I thought it was OK. Once you get into higher Ranks that changes obviously.

It makes some of the "big nasties" feel..well..big and nasty again. It also brings a nice balance between melee and ranged damage (still a bit uneven in favor of ranged, but better than before).

Charmander said:

Space Marines don't fight Waaghs! by themselves- there are usually components of multiple Chapters serving as elite shock troops (the "Hammer", as they are called in the fluff), in a force bulked up by massive numbers of Imperial Guard (the "Anvil").

Adeptus-B said:

I forget where I read this, I'm trying to find it. Might have been in the DW space marine section. But space marines companies generally don't fight their enemies in full force. They'll let another force, such as Imperial guard take on the prolonged warfare.

A space marine company is like the tip of a spear. Once they get there, they go for the big priority targets first. So rather than engaging every ork they can find on a planet, they'll go straight for the Warboss and his group of Nobz to effectively cut the head off the enemy. Then, as all the rest of the forces are left to the wind to scatter, they're mopped up by others.

Even if they're fighting on their own, they'll likely use a similar tactic. This weakens the opossing army as a whole and their coordination goes all to hell. In the Ork's case, half will probably try to fight with each other trying to see who'd the new warboss, while the other half are waiting to see who the victor is so they can beat them up. This then leaves Space Marines to mop up the remainders.

Frostfire said:

I get that Marines don't mass in a battle line like the Guard does, I really do get it.

My point being that even in a supposed scenario where the Orcs were going to beat up some SM's real bad, it was due to dumb luck and friendly fire that they were able to even get close to what you could consider a victory.

In the 2nd Armageddon War, the Orcs are busy handing the Imperials their asses until out of the sky drops Dante and his pals, who manage to blow the hell out of the Orks and give them their first loss of the whole conflict, then go on to turn the tide of the war and trap Ghazghkull in a hive where they run out of bullets (and of course he manages to escape so they could have a 3rd war for armageddon).

And isn't Assualt on Black Reach supposed to be 100 Marines versus 50k Orks, and don't the Marines win?

Yeah, they pod down to bloody the nose of the Warboss, then retreat back into the city as the orcs regroup. then Sgt Telion tracks them to their orky lair, and Sicarius leads another Raid to kill the warboss and blow up the orky doomsday device. they never truly fight a pitched battle.

I disagree. As this very site says,

'Space Marines are, by their nature and design, most commonly found where the fighting is the thickest'

They assault the hardest targets. If there is a breech that needs to be stormed, the Marines go in first (Siege of Vraks). If a stand needs to be made to halt an advance, the Marines are there (Taros Campaign). Marines are the shock troopers of the Imperium. They break the line.

You have distorted that quote. They still fight in a tactically sound fashion, not just charging like the Scots in Braveheart. Drop pods or outflanking are the way to go, unless no other option is available. They do NOT just charge a trenchline unless they have an ace in the hole. Like the Space Wolves using the power that summons a great fog bank to cover their advance.

The Marines you describe had their brains removed with an ice cream scoop to make room for more bolter ammo.

Fenrisnorth said:

Just because the movie doesn't depict the battle of Sterling Bridge with an actual bridge everyone get's all in a huff

ahh fast reading is still not my best skill.

btw: as i assumed until now the 2d10 are taking into account the tearing quality. so MArine weapons would do 1d10+5, true Chain weapons won't work this way. but being an old school tabletop player Bolters where S4 weapons regardless wich army used them, even chain weapons had always same stats.

with just a missing die on the melee weapons it would fit perfectly. So Astartes Weapons are tearing, have more ammo better range. cool enough. Else the would even smash through Tank armor with 3d10+5 skip lowest + skills and P 5. So an expert marksmen on full auto would blast a land speeder out of the sky or even demolish a tank wit a rear shot in one round. (statistically: BS aimed -> full auto -> Tactical Marine with mighty shot -> 3d10+9(14) average 23 damage +5 AP) good's sake it's a bolter no anti tank weapon. a land speeder or similar would be two hits on average. At least i wouldn't want that as GM. just considering, but would close the gap on gear. Also even when you say gear stays, incorporating Marines in "normal" ascenion Groups, Kill-Marines tend to gear down, so they are only 2.1 m tall handsome guys, and as such less obvious. Even a naked Marine is quiet deadly and Battle-Brothers know this well enough.

Thoughts?

Fenrisnorth said:

Unless you're a storm warden. Well, lets not get technical or...err

The Marines you describe had their brains removed with an ice cream scoop to make room for more bolter ammo.

This made me laugh so hard I'm making a gun servitor based on this model. Thank you my fine fellow.

You're welcome. Also, I have the Storm Wardens for getting Thunder Charge when no one else does.

Charmander said:

At least Gibson has sold the rights to Dambusters to Jackson...

Let me clear up a few misconceptions about bolt weapons – I’ve broken them up into several points for ease of reading:

"Astartes-grade bolters are heavier and thus cannot be wielded by Non-Marines."

Yes and no. Whilst Marine bolters are indeed heavier, they are still only half the weight of a standard heavy bolter which Sisters treat as auto-braced whilst in power armour. Note also that said heavy bolter does not only possess a greater weight but also a greater size, faster rate of fire and operates on an even larger caliber than the basic Marine boltgun (1.00 compared to 0.75). The Munitorum Manual further suggests that all boltguns are equal, anyways, but that automatic fire should only be used by Space Marines or personnel with bionic augmentation, which would likely include users of power armour as well.

Keep in mind that boltguns are also used by Space Marines without power armour (Scouts) and that Space Marines also need to be able to use much heavier weapons with even stronger recoil. The logical conclusion to this fact is that a Tactical Marine is not the lowest possible spectrum of users for such weapons, which in turn would open them up for “stocky individuals of great strength” or power armoured personnel, as suggested by the MM.

“Astartes bolters are larger and thus do more damage.”

Again, yes and no. Marine boltguns are indeed somewhat larger, but this discrepancy is neither as big as many users seem to believe, nor does it change the fact that the actual barrel size still remains completely unchanged from Non-Astartes bolter patterns. The increase in size does not come from larger ammunition but from occasional slabs of “weapon armour” giving the Marine’s weapon a greater resilience against combat stress, to accommodate their slightly(!) taller size, and in some cases from housing additional internal subsystems such as auto-repair and user identification. See this cross section for reference.

“Astartes caliber 0.75 is much longer than Non-Astartes caliber 0.75 and thus does more damage.” (often accompanied by alleged visual comparisons such as between these and these kinds of ammunition)

Unfounded theory, and quite unlikely as the official representations of Marine bolter ammunition show them to be actually rather short. Either see your Deathwatch rulebook or this picture of an official GW replica. Clearly there is no reason for why this should not fit in any other bolter magazine as well - in fact, the artworks are quite consistent in portraying a similar shell size across the board.

"But normal people are mere mortals!"

As are the Space Marines, per their own 5th edition Codex. It specifically uses this term.

"But shouldn’t Space Marines still be better and way more awesome than others?"

And they still are. I notice that a lot of people get caught up on very basic concepts such as the AP of their armour or how many dice their weapons do in damage. This is not what Space Marines are about – or rather, it is but a tiny fraction of the overall package. What gives them an edge is not the mere protective value of their armour, it’s the fact that it includes countless useful gadgets that enable them to simply keep on going regardless the odds. What makes them so awesome is not some puny number on their armoury’s weapon table, it’s the way how they use them by employing centuries of training and experience together with battle tactics unsuitable for lesser men. And that’s not even to mention their increased corporeal resilience or the dozens of extra implants. Think beyond AP and damage numbers and consider the greater picture, maybe then the idea won’t look so strange to you anymore.

And last but not least, here’s a small quote from the official fluff – it has already been posted by Frostfire here but I’ll reiterate for sake of completion:

“The Sisters of Battle are exceptionally well equipped, with armour and weapons the equal of any Space Marine Chapter."
- page 2 of their current Codex

So, yes, it does seem as if the Sisters' representation in this RPG and the opinion of a lot of posters in this thread differs “a little” from what GW has published.

The reasons for this are likely twofold:

One is, naturally, the need to balance their inclusion to other characters – something which should normally be done by roleplaying restrictions, but here is accomplished by (additional) limitations on their gear. This includes turning the Godwyn-De’az, a gun that, according to Codex fluff, is “superior to other weapons of its class”, into what is essentially a Good Quality standard bolter from the rack, even lacking auto-fire capability and, curiously, being weaker than its Sacristan-pattern pistol cousin from IH. In my personal opinion, Battle Sisters were introduced prematurely, which hurts their portrayal in direct comparison. The same applies to the “civilian” bolt weapons which are barely better than lasguns. The Inquisitor’s Handbook has provided ideas for workarounds for both issues, but sadly they did not stuck: One was to have a Sister start as a Novice and work her way up, and the other was introducing SB requirements for proper bolter usage. For example, a Sacristan-pattern bolt pistol requires an SB of 4. I am again at a loss for why this was not applied to the Godwyn-De’az from which the Sacristan supposedly originated.

Secondly, the need to have the Deathwatch game get “over the top” in terms of combat (notice how both bolter damage and armour protection have been scaled up from previous appearances), going into the epic rather than the realistic, along with Unnatural Toughness that makes naked Marines as tough as the armour they wear, and thus invincible to a lot of things that should (as per the fluff) have at least a chance to wound them. Hence the need for stronger adversaries, which in turn required stronger weapons to take them out – along with the new “Felling” quality, which is probably the best indicator about Unnatural Toughness being a bit of a problem.

The two systems work okay as long as you don’t mix them, and the fact that they do feel so inherently different is probably as much of an asset as it can be seen as a flaw – either way, I do think that any character or piece of gear that moves from one into the other needs to have its stats adjusted to compensate for this weird change in narrative style (pseudo-realism a la “Saving Private Ryan” vs epicness a la “300”).

So much for my analysis. Thank you for sitting through up to this point.