Reading through the stats for the above mentioned sniper rifle in RoB it states "used for long-range anti-personnel and anti-material work".

looking at the stats though - 0 penetration?! can't see much "material" being anti'd with THAT - is there an ammo type i've missed somewhere or is this yet another future "errata" subject?

It's a bad description, but in the Sniper rifle's defense it does have the accurate quality. Anything with the accurate quality has the potential to do some serious damage. On a good roll it could easily do 4d10+2 damage. (Getting 6 degrees of success, not completely out of the question.) That's decent enough to qualify for anti material against light vehicles like some of the flyers and skimmers in R of B.

Vs anything with heavy armor who cares about the pen when you have both Accurate and Toxic. You should be putting out so much damage on a good roll you can one shot a marine. And that's not even counting the Felling rule.

sgtgrarm said:

I think anything labeled sniper rifle should have Pen of at least 4. DW snipers are killing huge xeno monsters, not unarmored humans. I have just taken a variant of the Exitus Rifle listed in DH ascension for my campaigns.

I had a thought I mentioned in another thread of similar content, and I will again mention it here.

I think giving the non-Bolt " Sniper " weapons; such as the Astartes Needle Rifle and the "Ultra", a rule similar to that of the Eldar Long Rifle from D H: Creature Anathema might do well. Aside from the Long Rifle being Accurate, its Penetration improves by 2 for a Half-Action Aim, and by 4 for a Full-Action Aim. This seems like a reasonable idea, though I've not had a chance to try it out.

Additonally, the Eye of Vengeance talent was mentioned in the same thread, which amounts to additional penetration per Degree of Success.

-=Brother Praetus=-

i like the idea of the half/full aim actions increasing pen as you are "actively" seeking weak points to exploit when doing so. will see if GM will add this teeny lil house rule for me.

Nimon said:

Do you also take a variant of C´tan phase knife for your close combat specialists, to keep them on equal grounds ? Exitus is the best the Imperium has to offer and is for a reason specifically restricted to Vindicare Temple. So a basic Sniper Rifle even for Astartes has to be a few notches below that just as a chainsword or even a power weapon is below a c´tan phase knife. I would love to see a statline for that variant though.

Siphon said:

Actually, I came on to ***** about just this. Accurate Basic weapons get that extra damage. The spiner rifle out of the core book is a basic weapon, the one out of Rites of Battle, is a Heavy weapon, so it doesn't get the extra damage. Which I think is pretty dumb.

tkis said:

The Exitus Rifle is probably the only decent item I found in Ascension, the melee weapons in DW are stronger then a Daemon Hammer in Ascension. I had a few threads on this, basicly just take Pen down to 8 and you do not get the special ammo of the Exitus.

Fenrisnorth said:

The restriction on Accurate is more to restrict Pistols than Heavies. I would allow it to apply to special Heavy weapons without a second thought.

If you want an AMR, why not just put a scope on a lascannon? The Mk IX seems fine to me against soft targets.

Also remember that there's no real need to boost the weapon for it to be better against 'material'. There's lots of talents that already do that, and you can throw in the Appraise skill for good measure and increased effect, too.

The weapon is a NEEDLE weapon....unless the round is being shot at 10x the speed of sound then a sliver of anything isn't going to pen armor. The damage is high to indicate shooting through a view port or hitting the engine.

muzzyman1981 said:

The one in the core rulebook is indeed a needle weapon. The rifle we're talking about, the one in RoB, isn't a needle weapon, it's meant to be an "anti-material" rifle.

Did you read the description? It does, in fact, say that it's a needle weapon.

Yes it is. Read the first sentence of the description. It's a heavy needle sniper rifle.

Although as I seem to recall, the needle's AP capability would be increased by the laser-path it's fired down.

One of my players in my last game really wanted a Death Watch version of the Barret light fifty, So I made him a big ass anti material rifle. My main idea was taking a autogun caliber shell and putting it into a very accurate weapon system. I call it the reaper and mainly the idea is that you use different ammo varieties to get say more armour penetration or soft tissue damage depending. To really make it FEEL like a big rifle I decided to put in a special rule where it has to have a set up, this is because it has such a long barrel that a space marine could not just hold it normally to get the best out of it, he has to set it up (i.e. lie down on the ground or got to a knee and brace heavily even with bulging biceps). The very long range I decided was pretty much what I felt a Warhammer Barret should be able to do, the necessity of using it in a pre-prepared firing stance also lets you say that he is gauging for range, wind and other effects that would influence a very long range shot.

Reaper anti material rifle
Type Range Rate of Fire Damage Penetraiton Clip Reload Qualities Weight Req
Exotic 400m S/-/- 2d10+4I 4 5 1full Accurate, Special 30kg 20

Special:this weapon always requires a set up the user must always spend a half action to brace themselves and the weapon to be used properly. If fired without set up the shot will suffer a -20 penalty to BS with no reduction to this penalty with acurate.

This weapon would never be used by anyone but scouts or deathwatch. Space Marines even the very sneaky Raven Guard fight as heavy infantry, knee deep in heavy close quaters fire fights, something like this would really only be used by specialists like their scouts or with a Deathwatch team with a very specific task ((maybe the destruction of a tyranid synapse creature or even a heretic vehicle such as a dreadnaught)). I do love the extra pen for the more you aim so I may add that to. I know it is stupidly over powerd and I haven't even added a renown rating but I haven't thought of a suitable number. ANYWAY that is my patter over.

Doesn't that give it a TT equivalent range of 96"? It certainly far out-ranges a las-cannon, for comparison. And a las-cannon fires in a straight line, so is more accurate to start with.

To my mind the las-cannon makes a far better sniper rifle for marines. It could certainly be wielded and configured as one. It has a long range, and anything it hits is probably going to be very dead.

@Nuada:

While I like your rifle and am a big fan of people taking the initiative to make things on their own to further enhance the game experience, I have to ask.

Why would I, as a DW marine, want to take your rifle over the Stalker pattern boltgun? Merely for the range?

Stalker has 1 point more dmg and pen as well as tearing. Its dmg type is X, so there's an extra hit on a horde. You don't have to setup/brace.

You can use any of the bolter rounds with it, so you can go from stalker rounds making your firing undetectable to the ear, to kraken rounds giving you that extra AP, to hellfire or metal storm even. Stalker even holds more rounds, and if you're carrying a bolter as well, say for horde suppression, the ammo is interchangeable.

I guess what I'm asking is, sell me on your rifle. Why would I take it over the stalker for sniping?

And if it is merely for the range, I have to ask, do your combats really happen that far out?

@Bmaynard: +1 please! The stalker is simply a good sniper rifle. Even compared to the exitus it does more damage, only sacrificing penetration (and the special weapons in the rifle like -20 to dodge, but if the Emperor wanted the Marines to be assassins, he'd have given them the equipment to do it).

@Nuada: IMHO 400m it too far- I totally see the idea of creating a custom pattern but 400m seems excessive to me, as does the weight you have. As Bmaynard says the stalker does close to the same damage (more if used without stalker rounds), has a better clip size, and is much quieter. It's high powered in the realm of DH, but not in DW. A setup only weapon that ignores the Astartes bulging biceps would be a massive weapon indeed, given that a marine can fire a 75kg Lascannon at 300m doing 6d10+10 pen 10 without bracing. If you're going that route, with that special quality, I'd consider adding someting truly outlandish to it as you're talking about essentially a man-portable vehicle mounted weapon.

@Nimon: Remember we up-scaled to go to DW out of Ascention even, though the Demonhammer, at 2d10+1 pen 8 + special qualities, is a pretty ferocious weapon, really only being outdone by thunderhammers and up.

The rules for aiming to give you pen instead of damage is an interesting twist though, and I think adds some strategic depth, but should probably be reserved for a sub-selection of weapons. Would be interested in hearing how this played out in people's games.

bmaynard
You are right, the rifle is still quite low powerd. Now to address the idea of why should it have the set up, well yeah it is a massive weapon, it is an autocannon rifle essentially. I am going to post a revised stat line lower down. Now to start off 1) yes the damage is going to be higher, 2) there are a few specialist munitions that are out there (( or even that I could come up with)) that the Reaper could use that the Stalker can not, for me the Stalker is a silenced marksman rifle not a sniper rifle. 3)I like the limited ammo supply I am so bored of having fire fights where no one changes a magazine where is the drama in that. And in regards to killing hordes, it is not fore hordes its for things like Hive Tyrants and Chaos Space Marines, high value targets

Charmander

Fine make it 300m

in regards to ignoring bulging biceps it is really that it is a precision weapon, the heavy weapons space marines use are generally things you don't really need to aim to the same fidelity as a sniper rifle. Actually the Lascannon is a good example of a precision weapon I guess, it does kinda draw the image of something similar. Well what I have posted all ready can be tweaked and I am about too as well

I think in general the idea is it is a single target killer with the flexibility of a solid projectile weapon, the ability to use different types of ammo for different targets.

Reaper anti material rifle
Type Range Rate of Fire Damage Penetration Clip Reload Qualities Weight Req
Exotic 300m S/-/- 4d10+5I 4 5 1full Accurate, Special,Shot Selector 25 kg 20

Special:this weapon always requires a set up the user must always spend a half action to brace themselves and the weapon to be used properly. If fired without set up the shot will suffer a -20 penalty to BS with no reduction to this penalty with accurate.

The shot selector I think ads a lot, you have 2 5 shot clips, and you could have one with say the Hyper Density Lathe Body Blowers say from the Inquisitors Hand Book (( I imagine the Deathwatch could basically get any specialist ammunition types that are found in any of the previous books)) or maybe the Organ Grinder bullets from Into the Storm.

Nuada_Obliage said:

Certain ammo types I'd personally disallow, but most of them I agree with.

I like this profile better myself, for some reason it feels better to me. Seems more inline with the autocannons they mount on vehicles (I seem to recall a stat line like this on eht guncutter stats). Even without specialty ammo, the weapon can essentially do the same as a lascannon (sans the pen 10), but it's different enough that it feels like it has it's own niche. Without the book for reference the req seems a bit low to me, though the fact it's exotic and you need the setup/brace seems to be a penalty enough to balance that out.

Not sure what you mean by the difference between a silenced marksman rifle and a sniper rifle though, as a quiet, longer ranged rifle that can kill people accurately from a distance was always my view of what a sniper and his rifle was supposed to do.

I think every DW sniper rifle worth the name needs the felling quality.
But just taking the stats of the stalker and adding felling would be too powerful I think. Vs Caos marines that is.

Charmander said:

Silenced marksman's rifles are accurate rifles that are suppressed. Sniper rifles are not suppressed in any way and have a far superior level of accuracy. For a weapon to be fully suppressed, the round has to travel at sub-sonic speeds, which results in a trajectory like a rainbow, and an accurate range of not more than a couple of hundred yards.

Now you've got something that I would take over a stalker.

The additional dice make it much more attractive as a large target weapon and that statline fits in more with what I'd expect to see on a marine portable auto cannon.

I think you're on the right track.

Siranui said:

Ah, I think I see where you're coming from now. My view was being rooted in 40kisms where ther is no range modifier for supressors or silencers, and their silenced weapons shoot 600m. When looking at it from a real perspective, you're spot on

Charmander said:

The Exitus I like for its Pen and Range. There is a differance between assassin and sniper. Even present day military(including Marines) have snipers. The comment about the melee weapons was for itks comment about c'tan phase knifes, basicly I am saying the marine melee weapons are pretty extreme already. I have already been over this a million times, but since you called me out specificly I responded. A Space Marine with huge arms and power armor that is going to snipe a MASSIVE Xeno what ever, will probably be packing some heat with serious pen. If you like the stalker then just make that availble to your sniper types, but the "astartes sniper rifle" of all types in the books are a complete waste.