The silencer says it halves the range at which a shot can be heard, what is this range? and where do I find it, with all the shiny new stealh stuff in RoB I am looking at this with a renewed interest.

Fenrisnorth said:

I'm not sure that it does. It's completely environmently dependant, but if it's quiet, you can easily hear a 'silenced' weapon from 100m away. Call it 50m maybe, or 20m indoors. You can still clearly hear a silenced weapon (even a fully suppressed weapon with sub-sonic ammunition makes a metallic noise, as a metal pin bangs onto another bit of metal and the best part of a pound of metal slams backwards and forwards). 'Silencers' - or more accurately 'suppressors' - don't silence weapons; they just quieten them and modify the sound so that it's not as immediately obvious as a firearm - especially to non-military types.

Yes, realistically speaking a silencer doesn't silence the weapon, but there is a piece of wargear called a silencer, and the descriptions says "Awareness Tests to hear shots made with a silenced weapon suffer an additional –20 penalty and can only be attempted at half the normal distance." I'm asking where to find what distance a shot can be heard from in the DW book.

I don't think that it does, which is why I offered some ideas.

Come on, I just QUOTED the rulebook to you, I'm not asking if it makes sense, just where to find the rules it references.

I've told you: I don't think it's in the rules. Certainly not that I can remember. Are you now wanting me to pick it up and read through it painstakingly simply so that you don't have to?

No one knows what the "Normal" distance is. The GM get's to make it up on the fly and tweak it based on the weapon being used. When using the silencer, think of the gun and go 'yeah, you could probably hear that at 200m under normal conditions.' Then you cut it in half and add the modifier to the roll for having the silencer on it. Feel free to correct us if we are wrong.

Thanks Char, I was hoping it was actually a functional upgrade. Stalker boltgun it is then.

It is a functional upgrade, it's just that the distance at which you can hear a gun go off depend massively on the surroundings you are in. If you're in the countryside, a gunshot will ring over the fields for miles, where as if you are in a loud, noisy, busy Hive City or Forge World, you'll be lucky for people to be able to identify it as a gunshot over the noise of machinery from 100 or so metres away.

One way to look at suppressors/silencers is that functionally they are more about masking the sound than anything else. The idea is to reduce the decibel level as well as make it sound less like a gunshot. In a hive setting a silenced weapon may be confused with a door closing or a piece of machinery doing operating.

@Millandson

By not functional, I mean, if the GM wants the enemy to get to roll, they do. I'm not saying my GM is adversarial, but If I know the gun's hearing range is 100m normally, I'd like to be able to set up 75m away and not worry about it.

It looks like it's all academic because we just squeaked into Respected, so I'll be grabbing the Stalker, I can shoot that literally right behind someone and they'll hear me snickering over the report.

Unless you only ever use Stalker rounds in the Stalker bolter, any opponents can still roll to hear you, and I doubt you'll be able to afford to only ever use Stalker rounds.

well yeah, but with things like Kraken rounds and a scope you can be like a kilometer away, aim, and take some fool's head off. I also requisitioned a pair of Stummers, 40 minutes of every hour at -30 to hear me? stack that with the -30 from the stalker boltgun itself, and I will flip a frickin table if the enemy hears me.

Fenrisnorth said:

It all depends on who and what the enemy is. As a GM though most of the enemies I present wouldn't have a prayer of hearing you at -60 (most of them would probably fail at -30 except for a handful), though clever enemies or well equipped ones can figure out where a sniper is coming from using more than just sound. That is provided their head doesn't go pffft on the first round. This would be especially true if the sniper was using supersonic rounds, which I would rule a kraken is.

Regardless of that however, the fact that the enemy is spending even a round to locate you means that you've succeeded in part of the job of the sniper by distracting and potentially pinning the enemy down. Your squad should be helping clean up.

We've got a crazy mission ahead of us. Infiltrate a Tau occupied city, capture an ethereal, destroy or cripple 2 operations buildings and a spaceport, and, if we can, destroy 10 tau vehicles and TWO HUNDRED Tau. I am currently trying to figure out just how many I can pick off stealthily Sam Fisher style before we get to the 300 style bits.

Fenrisnorth said:

Hire a Vindicare to stab them all in the base of the skull

Get a lascannon, some meltas, and displace like hell. If those missions are all at once, you'll probably be able to afford quite a few stalker rounds.

Your GM's probably reading this so I apologize in advance, but inside a Tau military complex I'd be worried about them being able to backtrace where the shots are coming from the way modern systems like "Weapon Watch" do. Consider something up close and personal for your friends to stab them in their unsuspecting faces with (power fist?).

90 req each. so 3 clips stalker rounds, then my normal clips for when things get hot.

Asked for

00 Deathwatch Scout Armor
04 Astartes Harness
20 Cameloline Cloak
10 Autosense Goggles
10 Laser Sight
10 2 Cluster Mine satchels
06 Telescopic sight

15 Stalker Pattern Boltgun

15 3 clips Stalker Ammunition

We are also getting a grav chute free, as that's how we're getting to the scene of the crime. Then I got Bessie and May sue, my Combat knife and Chainsword!

Fenrisnorth said:

Remember you have to swap out your scopes/sites, you can't use them both. Hope somone is bringing melta charges

We agreed it took 3 rounds to switch them out!