Hello fellow explorators!

I was wondering if it is possible to have a man-portable Twin-linked weapon? As you know, the 'Twin-Linked' special qualitiy is first mentioned in the Rogue Trader Core Rulebook. But, the only example of weapons that have Twin-Linked quality is in the Supplement 'Into The Storm' and are mounted on vehicles.

A Twin-linked weapon represent two identical weapon melted in one, allowing the user to fire both weapons with a single trigger. I guess the weapon would then be twice as heavy. For example, the weight of a Heavy Bolter is 40 kg. 2 Heavy Bolters should weight around 80 kg. Some characters (providing good strength and endurance characteristics) COULD actually wield the weapon.

So would it be realistic to have a man-portable Twin-Linked weapon ?

-Sorry about my mediocre english writing skills-

Presuming you can actually carry the weapon, yes. There is no particular reason you couldn't have a man-portable heavy bolter, just have to find/build one.

In case of recoiling heavy weapons (such as heavy bolters) I'd impose heavy penalties on firing them without proper bracing.

Proper bracing in this case meaning flat, solid ground, preferrably anchoring the bipod with long, heavy nails or in front of an immovable obstacle (huge rock, piece of wall, etc). No Power Armour or Bulging Biceps to compensate. If a person has both Power Armour (or otherwise 6+ SB) and Bulging Biceps you could allow him to fire the weapon standing but still negate the +20 Full Auto bonus to BS just to show how difficult it is to keep such a beast under control.

I mean, there's got to be a reason why the only twin-linked heavy weapons are mounted on vehicles and buildings. I'm all for making man-portable versions available where it seems physically possible, but at the same time there should be appropriate penalties that make it clear as to why these guns would be an exception from the rule and not even mass-produced.

I like the advice thanks, but what about smaller weapons like Plasma Pistol or meltaguns?

What kind of penalties would they get? Twin-Linked weapons reload time are basiclly doubled but that does't not seems to be a valuable reason to mass produce them, unless thats a good enough drawback.

sorry about the double post, still new to the forum.

Having the weapon's reload time doubled does not seems a valuable reason not to mass produce Twin-linked pistols or basic weapons.

Well, a Storm Bolter is basically a twinlinked boltgun, so that is one example. I also just remembered that Multimeltas and Heavy Flamers are just Meltaguns and Flamethrowers with two barrels (thus, in theory, qualifying as "twinlinked"?), though the rules work differently here and the weapons just get a higher damage value (and, in the case of the Multimelta, the Blast property). I also vaguely remember a twinlinked Lasgun somewhere in the Inquisitor's Handbook but I'd have to take another look to be certain ...

I'd say the most obvious disadvantages would be higher weight (not only for the weapon but the ammo as well - for example, the Heavy Flamer requires two people with one just carrying the tank - unless the user has a Strength of 40+ in which case he can carry both), more difficult to carry (try "holstering" a twinlinked pistol), greater reload time, eats more ammunition (of which you can still not carry more as when you'd have opted for a single weapon), requires more maintenance and is pricier than two non-linked models of the respective weapon.

If you want to go ahead, compare the aforementioned weapons with their "single barrel cousins" and draw your conclusions for anything else that you might want to construct. Keep in mind that anything other than them would be custom-made and thus requires a capable gunsmith, though. For a Rogue Trader, rarity might be the most important and tricky aspect here.

For twinlinked pistols, I'd also houserule that they have the same drawbacks as the Hand Cannon to reflect the greater weight and recoil. That said, the only case in which I've ever seen someone with a twinlinked pistol were Space Marine Terminators.

Twin linked is not the same as slapping two identical weapons together side by side or over/under. Twin linked refers to the targeting system for the two weapons that make them hit the approx. same spot, regardless of range. This would imply a rangefinder and a calibrated targeting rig. Definately not something that would work while being carried.

I'd imagine that someone who wants two weapons slapped together is not altogether bothered about targeting software. additionally, with energy weapons the lack of substantial mass means that they would just fly straight.

In the imperial armour book about the siege of Vraks, the Death Korp use twin linked heavy stubbers instead of heavy bolters, so they must be somewhat portable. I'd just double the weight of a weapon and give it the storm quality. If you can holster a storm bolter easily, theres no reason a twin linked hand cannon would be difficult.. For weapons with blast or flamers, up the damage a bit, and make it a bit larger blast/ harder to avoid. this would have to vary depending on the weapon, so you'll have to adlib a bit.

There's a double heavy stubber in Into the Storm, might want to check out that one. I think it basically works like the storm bolter, i.e. h.stubber with storm.

Twin linked weapons are 2 full-sized, seperate, and identical weapons placed together and designed to fire at the same target and same time when fired. The storm bolter is a two actions, barrels, and a double-magazine fitted inside of a single housing.

Twin linked weapons would, at the least be double the weight of the base weapon. I would add a Kg or five for the bracing holding the two weapons together on top of that. In addition both weapons would also require their own full-sized ammunition. So your twin linked MP lascannon would weigh 126Kg. Thats 110Kg for 2 lascannons, 5 Kg for the bracing, and 11 Kg for the 2 charge packs. That does not include extra ammo or tripods/etc. If we were to assume the avg rolls of 29 (as stated in DH rulebook) most characters would have a max Lift weight of 36 Kg. Bump it up to a 30 each for Str and T and your up to 76 Kg, still not enough to even pick up the weapon.

There's your reason they are only mounted on vehicles.

Johan B said:

As per the book, it is. I would assume the weapons are "simply" carefully mounted in a way that their barrels are perfectly aligned to each other - the only weapon where you would suffer accuracy loss from bullet trajectory would be SP weapons, and even there it would affect both barrels in the same way. Actually having a Storm Bolter hit the exact same spot would even be counterproductive as the bolts would hit each other before hitting the target.

trentmorten said:

Wow - how do you holster a Storm Bolter?

trentmorten said:

Agreed about the blast, but - whilst I do agree about the flamer being harder to avoid being realistic (->larger cone) - this would actually make it better than the "twinlinked flamethrower" that is already in the books, hence I'm not quite sure about this. Maybe for cases where you have "twinlinked heavy flamers" (meaning 4 barrels), but I'm pretty sure no-one would be able to carry this, given that such a weapon is only ever used as a tank turret (Immolator).

So far we have examples for "twinlinked" bolters, heavy stubbers, lasguns, meltas and flamers in the books. The twinlinked lasgun is the "Lasburst Twin Lasgun" on IH p. 173. Instead of the Storm quality it got Tearing, though I do believe this was only because the Storm quality did not yet exist at the time IH was written.

herichimo said:

Not necessarily - depending on the construction, the weapon could be fed by a single ammunition pack as well, as is the case for the Sororitas Storm Bolter (see image above). In case of a lascannon there is no real reason for why the cannon could not draw its energy from a single charge pack - it would, however, of course consume twice as much ammunition, making the pack only last half as long.

You could also rule that the weapon becomes Unreliable due to a standard chargepack not being designed for essentially transmitting twice the amount of energy, though there are multiple ways around this negative quality (a capacitor that adds yet more weight, or a specially designed more expensive chargepack), all depending on whether you want this or not.

How do you holster a storm bolter: MAGLOCKS.

How do you deal with the increased weight? SUSPENSORS (for Heavy Weapons; though it could work also for any large weapon depending on your GM or piece of equipment like a backpack), and grow stronger. AND you are not required to ADD weight for Twin Linked. So the LasCannon example is incorrect:

Two LasCannon, Man Portable, Twin Linked = 55kg (Suspensors on the combined weapon halve weight) + Backpack Power Pack (could be carried by user or a ammo guy next to you) = another 25kg. Doable. If you are fething strong, yeah.

In an interesting side note one of my campaign's characters is planning out a twin linked hellgun for his shoulder MIU (he is big/Hulking). Very ugly to see that guy coming at you with a chain glaive and powerfist still capable of firing.

As the hellgun uses a power pack to store ammo i've allowed him to get a backpack power pack modified to act as ammo source for both weapons or use twin power packs both sets of ammo types are capable of being latched onto his carapace armour. But he still faces double reload times as in the description of twin linked.

bobh said:

Good point, did not think of that option. That said, a chunk of an extra ~10 kilos on one of your legs must be a ***** to haul around. But I suppose a power armour is easily capable of compensating for even that.

As for the hellgun: IH even says you could feed one with a standard lasgun charge pack, but they consume 4 charges per shot in that case. Just to mention an alternative. Personally, I would not allow a player to carry two hellgun backpacks - going by the models they're too huge for that. I would propose either using one for 50% ammo, or perhaps a modified variant for +50% weight and 75% ammo. In the end it's your call, of course - my thoughts also revolve a bit around balancing, and twinlinked weapons do come with a certain threat that they might become too powerful if they lack considerable drawbacks.

Lynata said:

Then we agree =)

I suppose the procedure would depend on who was doing the twin linking (orc pc's?).

I don't know about Maglocks for the storm bolter, but Calligos winterscale has one in a holster in whichever sourcebook he's in. (no books to hand i'm afraid).

with regards to the weight of a gun, add unnatural strength grafts and you can carry almost anything, especially if you are also in power armour. I can see quad Linked Lascannons appearing, which would allow for fully auto fire.... Still, it would make one hell of a signature weapon (quad link autocannon, personal hydra battery, or more feasibily, quad heavy Stubbers, for when you have to fire 40 shots in a round).

trentmorten said:

But like all guard heavy weapons, these twin stubbers are mounted on litle trollies. Besides, even a singel heavy stubber shouldnt be portable, let alone be able to fire without a bipod, or preferably a tripod.

There is a twin-linked autopistol in Ascension that one of the baddies uses.

BossTroll said:

A single heavy stubber is basically an M60, so I don't see a problem with that - but you still have a point, it starts getting ridiculous when people waltz around with stuff like four barrel lascannons when even Space Marines only ever use their standard variants and only when wearing power armour.

I mean, seriously ... you want to take this and slap three of its kind onto it?

BossTroll said:

I'd assume they're portable; look at WW2 heavy weaponry. Folded up into a carriable package, with a Half-Action to set it up at another piece of cover.

You can fire with them, but the average person won't hit crap (Delicious -30 B), but Strength 45 and Rank 3-4 Arch-militant, or Machinator Explorator isn't exactly 'average'.

Lynata said:

A Stormbolter is evolved from what is essentially a Twin-linked Bolter (the Combi-Bolter that preceded it, still in use by Chaos forces), but it isn't a twin-linked bolter in its own right. It's a Bolter with two barrels that fire in synch (not necessarily simultaneously - it could as easily alternate between barrels, essentially doubling the rate of fire by 'sharing' the job between the two firing mechanisms)... but that isn't inherently "twin-linked". In game terms, this is quite clearly demonstrated by the fact that a Stormbolter has the Storm quality, rather than the Twin-Linked quality.

This is true of all the examples you've given - they're double-barrelled weapons, but they're not inherently twin-linked. A Heavy Flamer is essentially just a bigger flamer (the twin nozzles aren't present on all designs), and the Multi-Melta is similarly a much bigger, much more powerful melta-weapon (longer range, small blast effect, more damage). Similar with the twin-barrelled lasgun in The Inquisitor's Handbook - it's a lasgun with two barrels, not two lasguns stuck together. There is a distinction.

Twin-linking, in terms of most of the models and images I've encountered, applies when two of a given weapon are mounted together to fire simultaneously, which is almost always on vehicles or other heavy mounts not portable by even Astartes due to their bulk (the Combi-Bolter and Reaper Autocannon are about the smallest twin-linked weapon systems I've seen, and they're only employed on Tactical Dreadnought Armour and vehicles). I don't personally recall having ever seen a man- (or even Astartes-) portable twin-linked weapon... in tabletop terms, the nearest is the twin pistols used by Seraphim, but that's a rule used for mechanical convenience rather than actually being twin-linking (because the pistols are quite clearly separate), and more effectively covered by the dual wielding rules in 40kRP.

In game terms, Twin-linked is a weapon quality, not an upgrade. Thus, while there are no notes on how much a twin-linked weapon should weigh, cost, etc, there is also no way in-game to apply it to a weapon (it doesn't have an availability, and it isn't in the weapon upgrades section... you can't just buy it)... the rules are there to describe how twin-linked weapons function, rather than to provide the option for weapons to be made twin-linked.

Well, a Combi-bolter is actually the ancestor of the actual Storm Bolter. A Storm Bolter is a single weapon with two barrel but a Combi-Bolter is essentially two Bolter strapped together and modified to fire both weapons with ONE trigger. The Combi-Bolter was indeed often Mounted on vehicle or Termies because (well thats my opinion anyway) there were more effective options for a soldier to do more damage.For example, in terms of portability and damage, a Heavy Bolter would do more damage and would probably be just a bit heavier.

Lets look at some Astartes Weapon weight (I will use Deathwatch core rulebook for this): an unnmodified Astartes Godwyn Bolter weight 18kg. An unnmodified Astartes Storm Bolter weight 26kg.

Like you said, that Storm Bolter is a SINGLE weapon with TWO fire mechanisms. Strapping two bolter (a single one weight 18kg) would make a similar weapon with an unoptimised targeting system and an unoptimised weight, which would be a little more than twice that bolter's weight. taking that into account, *18kg x 2 = 36* plus the extra weight generated by the material needed to link them together, which would be around 10 to 15kg (and im very generous considering an Astartes Bolt Pistol weight around 5.5kg). That gives us a double bolter that weight around 51kg. An Astartes Heavy Bolter weight 68kg. So in terms of weight, a Space Marine could wield a 'Combi-Bolter-like' weapon, but that would be less effective (and less satisfying hehe) than using a Heavy Bolter.

I know im talking about the greatest warriors in the imperium, but some folks are naturally strong and others have implants that double their strengths(and don't forget that heavy weapons can be modified with Suspensors). I guess the innevitable problems would be that (RP wise) these weapon are VERY awkward to use, suffers heavy penalties and waste a ****load of ammo.

Then again, the GM is always the final juge on things like this.

Oh yes and I forgot, such weapons would most likely be Custom-made('unique' quality I guess), considering that the 'customer' has to find a person skilled enough (and willing enough) to make weapons like this.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

The Storm quality makes a single shot inflict two hits, so it very much seems as if the barrels fire simultaneously - which is exactly the same what happens with any twinlinked weapons.

My interpretation may not be supported by the rules as they are written - but it does follow common sense, which the rules sometimes do not. Keep in mind that the rules evolved over time and were not complete on day one, so the Lasburst lacking the twinlinked quality may very well be simply because the IH is older than it. The weapon description ("doubling its firing rate") and the very name ("Twin Lasgun") do sound very much like a twinlinked system to me. And just because some heavy flamers have only one instead of two barrels does not automatically mean that the latter would not count as twinlinked - only that the one-barrel-system has to compensate with something else to achieve the same damage.

I would agree that multiple barrels do not a twin weapon make, after all, otherwise rotary weapons would qualify as would some types of Shotgun (in the IH i think). A twin linked weapon is a deliberate attempt to marshal two weapons to hit the same target, operated by a single individual.

With regards to the tabletop, we can't really use anything much portrayed there for RP terms. The priority of a tabletop game is to balance so that lots of people can play armies that are not massively bigger then each other in terms of models. I know an IG army will end up bigger then almost anyone save 'nids, but compared to the canon in which tens of thousand of IG are destroyed but a company (100) marines, i do not think that the TT bears that out. that’s not what its there for.

As for marines carrying quad lascannons, why not? it would give them some serious anti tank firepower, but be useless at anything else really and preclude the operator from carrying any other weaponry. you might see it in the iron warriors, for use in sieges, but most would prefer a little flexibility, say a quad missile launcher. this would function like an improved missile launcher with a larger blast area (+3 to blast quality for frag, +1 for Krak) , slightly more damage (+3 frag, +6 krak, ). This still means it would function like a missile launcher should, only a badass Marine version.

The limitations of such weapons would be good RP potential. People would react to such weapons in fear or simple distaste for what they imply. I know no one in my group would dream of carrying such a monstrosity anywhere outside of an assault scenario.

Lynata said:

The heavy stubber is more of an M2 Browning equivalent really, given the fact that it can actually damage lightly armoured vehicles.

Astartes are way way stronger that humans, DeathWatch doesnt give them unnatural strength for no reason. Thats why they prance around with a lascannon that should by all rights belong on a tripod