Well, I'm finishing the final touches for the four Rank 4 characters my players will use to play The Emperor Protects, and I'm reaching a truly... strange point with the devastator marine.
First, I choose for all marines the solo mode option of their specialty. Second, they are a Crimson Fists tactical marine (kill-marine nad leader of the group, with an amazing cohesion of 12: 61 Fel, +3 from Mighty Lineage, +1 from Command +10, +1 from armor history, plus a +15 to Fel tests thanks to the armor being a Mark IV and an extra +15 to command for armor history and the mighty lineage...), an apothecary of the Ultramarines, a Blood Angels assault marine (built around the Raven Guard's chapter master's miniature...) and an Imperial Fists Devastator.
Now, thanks to the MIU, the Signature Wargear (Master) and a Motion Predictor, his HB gives +30 to BS (and I "wasted" 25 points of the signature wargear into a suspensor instear of making the weapon a Best Quality one), base BS of 48 and three advances into BS. So when firing the Heavy Bolter this marine has an effective BS of 93. Plus +20 for firing a Full Auto. With a 2d10+12X damage (talent: Mighty Shot), making an additional hit for every degree of success up to 11 hits (bolter drill talent...).
To this, against hordes he adds +1 damage/hit thanks to his armor (Death is Joy), +1 for explosive damage (standard bolter ammo), +2 because of the Master of Arms distinction (Blast (2) or Felling (1)), x2 thanks to the Storm of Iron talent. Plus the Marksman talent, and an Astartes Targeter...
So against a Magnitude 30 horde at 300-450 meters away his chances are 143%. With a 45 (for example) he gets 9 degrees of success, so he tears the Horde away dealing (9+4)x2 = 26 damage with a single barrage, and the horde breaks because less than 25% of it remains (unless it's a fearless horde...).
Oh, and the dude has Target Selection to allow him to shoot into melee without penalty (by the way... does this mean he can shoot while into melee himself too, or only that he can shoot where people are in melee wihtout fear of blasting a friend?).
My question is if I'm making something wrong here, or it's just fine and things work like this. By the way, the Assault marine does 1d10+20E Pen8 and has 3 attacks per turn with a 91% base, 4 with 81% if he wants (and an arm-mounted bolter), and the tactical marine has a Stalker-pattern bolter of best quality with sight (+40 BS, he puts to shame a Vindicare...).
), then if we can use the MIU to look down the barrel and get a +10 bonus from it, what good is a targeting system or sight stuck on top of the gun? Surely it would count as the only permitted gun sight? Additionally, if you could just put in some cybernetics and get +10 to all shooting, why wouldn't it be built into the black carapace systems and standard for all marines?
. Of course you can give them special equipment. My rune priest earned his wolfhelm during the great hunt he took part in (past history) and our GM did not reqired me to purchase the Signature Wargear talent as he earned it before joining the DW. Or it is even better if they aquire it during their missions. The DW keeps any relics they find but let them keep wargears (weapons, helmets, and so on). It is great way of rewarding your players. The only you must keep is the balance of the game.