Just making sure I got this right.

So, Dev with Storm of Metal and Cleanse and Purify, and a heavy flamer

((8+1d5+1d5)x2)x2

So, min of 40 horde damage. Max horde damage of 72.

If in Term armor, you can dual wield them and thus make two attacks with them a round. If you use the squad mode that allows you to spend a recation to make another attack, thats 3 total in a round. So thats a max of 216 horde damage a round?

That is how I calculate it. Really good against hordes but has a very short range and pretty crappy against elites.

So trade out one flamer for an autocannon. Still get two attacks with one weapon, one attack with other. Good lord, the humanity, errrr...hordmanity. Somehow, it doesnt seem fair for the poor little hordes.

xandarian said:

Hordes really are expected to die in droves. I strongly recommend using multiple medium-sized (Magnitude 30-40) Hordes rather than just one super-sized one for almost all purposes.

HappyDaze said:

I'd agree with this most of the time, though it partially depends on the forces you're using (larger hordes are more appropriate for Orks and Tyranids than for Tau, for example), and the situation you're trying to convey. I'm running a heavily-altered version of Oblivion's Edge, and multiple large (Mag 60-100) are really good for overwhelming last stand situations such as the starport battle, if only because the distance to target and the defences available help whittle them down to a more reasonable number by the time they reach combat.

Then again, I tend to scale up a little with the Hordes I use anyway, simply because the Devastator in my group has Unrelenting Devastation, Death is Joy armour, and a BS of 73 (he maxed it out early - they're not even Rank 3 yet), so him dealing 33 magnitude damage a turn isn't actually all that uncommon.

xandarian said:

You seem to be using the most optimistic way of doing the maths, which I believe is incorrect. As per the way multipliers work elsewhere in the rules, they are added together, and then addition is done at the end. For example: Look at how unnatural strength works.

So: You firstly add together multipliers. x2 and x2 = x3 not x4.

Then you add the d5s on top.

So it's just 24+2d5.

That's the way we do it, anyhow. Otherwise -as you tightly point out - it's a bit stupid.

Carrying two heavy flamers is also ridiculous. Even if you think it's fine, any GM in their right mind will likely veto it.

I understand your point with the multipliers, but its the wording. One doubles the number of hits. One makes it so each hit does double damage. Thats the real kicker.

xandarian said:

I tend to agree that most hordes are expected to die in droves, they're the speedbump to the end game. That said I'm not a fan of exponential multipliers, and tend to use nearly all of them as addative, like unnatural strength and the power fist. YMMV, and I don't see either as particularly 'better' or 'worse', but when building your load out and character make sure you and your GM are on the same page.

As for dual wielding, I agree with Siranui here and wouldn't allow players to dual wield anything greater than pistols or single handed melee weapons. Not two bolters, not two heavy bolters, not two flamers. I'd definitely check with your GM on that one.

I would agree with you on the no dual wielding in normal armor, but thats one of awesome specific things about Term. They let you use a heavy one handedgive you the Auto-stabilize trait so its a half action. Stupid tactical Dread armor.

@ charmander on dual wielding

I would have said I agreed with you until I recently discovered that it does say RAW that you can dual wieldfull auto/semi auto two PISTOLS. since then I have accepted the idea of dual wielding bolters but they can only standard attack with each bolter as a full action, which makes it seem a lot less ridiculous, what are your thoughts on this?

also as a GM I usually insist on one ranged one and close combat weapon for tactical dread armour. If they do insist on twin heavy flamers engage them in close combat and say because they have no use of their arms they dont get the combat master bonus's to unarmed attacks, and obviously can't parry, as basically they are just trying to headbutt a genestealer. that'll teach them a lesson about being silly

xandarian said:

Enforce the rule that the off-hand must be a close-combat weapon (power sword, power fist, chain fist). If a player complains, point him to pics of 40K Terminator minis. Or the SM Codex rules.

Alex

Well in this case Pistols means Basic weapons are excluded. Perhaps there is a talentitem/upgrade making Basic weapons the PC uses count as Pistol weapons, but baring such an instance I would have to say nay to 2-handing bolters.

I posted the above as I had thought you meant the type of fighting (2-Handed) was pistols only. After thinking for a bit that this was a little off I re-checked the book.

First bullet under two-weapon fighting on page 246: "The character may use any melee weaponsranged weaponse that can be reasonably used in one hand."

Therefore, a marine can use 2 bolters (basic) weapons,any other basicpistol weapon with the Two Weapon Wielder(ranged) talent as long as the marine in question is wearing his power armor. Power armor allows all basic weapons to be fired with only 1 hand (pg. 161 Recoil Suppression).

Both weapons have all the rules on page 246 for 2 weapon fighting. Although there is no -20 penalty for attacking with the secondary hand (as space marines are ambidextrous). They still suffer the -10 if they fire both weapons with the multiple attacks combat action.

Therefore, a marine can use 2 bolters (basic) weapons, **or** any other basic **or** pistol weapon with the Two Weapon Wielder(ranged) talent as long as the marine in question is wearing his power armor.**

I swear these boards like to mysteriously swallow up random words from your posts.

where in the rules does it ever say your off hand weapon must be a cc weapon

herichimo said:

Yeah, I find that as well, about swallowing words.

but it also says in Full Auto Action pg 239 "If a character has a pistol in each hand, both capable of fully automatic fire, he may fire both with this Action"

so you can use two bolters, but you can only either Full auto with one of them, or standard attack with both. but the Full auto action is a full action and can only be used with one weapon unless both are pistols.

semi auto has a similar sentence

That bit looks to be an example of using the full auto action with two weapon fighting. Similar to hand-to-hand with your standard attack or multi-attacks.

Essentially the line means: if you have a weapon capable of full-auto in both hands and have two-weapon wielder(ballistic) (which is required to use two-weapon fighting options on page 246) then you may use a single full auto attack to fire both weapons. The inclusion of pistols in the line was simply the weapon the writer decided to use in the example description, a bit of mental imaging if you will. It does not mean you may only fire full auto with pitsols.

In fact the two-weapon fighting rules indicate you can fire each weapon in either hand in different modes. Meaning one weapon can be fired in single-shot and the other full-auto, both in full-auto, or one on semi-auto and the other on full-auto. Any type of firing mode can be used with both weapons in two-weapon fighting (with the exception of suppresing fire: 6th bullet under two-weapon fighting on page 246).

Also remember, non-space marine characters (or SMs out of their armor) would only be able to use pistols in this manner (2-weapon fighting) as they do not have space marine armor to allow the character to fire basic weapons 1-handed. Probably that bit was cut-pasted from Dark Heresy rules and they didn't feel they needed to change the wording as two-weapon fighting was described in detail later on.

herichimo said:

They can get recoil gloves, fwiw, which allow them the ability to do the same thing.

You're right in your reading of the RAW, however I (and many others) don't especailly like the image of dual wielding basic weapons and thus prohibit it.

And yes, the forums seem to be swallowing words up, I notice it most with whitespace and punctuation.

@Narkasis: I still just get a bad taste in my mouth when someone wants to wield two basic weapons and do anything more than fire one of them. I know it's cinematic and all but it just doesn't feel right to me, for whatever reason, and seems too over the top. It also doesn't seem to fit well with the ruleset- if you're going to let people do that type of thing it should be factored into the rest of the game's balance. And it looks wrong .

xandarian said:

I try not to apply contract law to my roleplaying, so we assumed the approach that's less game-breaking.

As per the rules, Termi suits have a specific list of acceptable load-outs. Just because 'heavy flamer' is included, it doesn't mean that 'two heavy flamers' is. A little GM common sense and consideration of the complete lack of terminator models with twin heavy flamers goes a long way.

Charmander said:

As far as I have noticed it mainly swallows and & or between other words, deleting the space nearby as well.
So "Hail and Kill" becomes HailKill. But you can edit it right after posting.

Siranui said:

And on top the fact that a heavy flamer in each arm would make a termi very vulnerable to close combat.
That alone would suffice for me to rule that the quartermaster refuses to hand out such a suit.

The munchkin would argue that he'd be fine in close combat, and could fire the weapons at a huge negative, which is moot because no BS roll is needed with flamers...

At which point you can demonstrate the advantage of hard-back rulebooks over soft-cover ones.

Siranui said:

Except that Basic and Heavy weapons cannot be fired in melee.

Siranui said:

I laughed hard on that. May have to use this as a signature at some point.

That being said, I know when the issue of medical healing came up Ross said to use standard multiplicative math, do the doubling and then add the bonuses. Being that there are RAW lawyers out there the point really is moot since we are talking about heavy flamers and not medicae.

Its up to you and your GM to decide in the case of poorly written/worded rules and/or conflicting ones, until it is clarified in an errata.

Don't let the rules hang up your game play. Play the game and have fun.