Ah, that does make more sense. Yes, that is rather different from the tabletop. Not that a Land Raider can't bounce a multi-melta occasionaly there, but being immune is something else.

This is making me wonder if the the Dark Angels psychic power that grants armour might be getting a nerf. Even a starting character who pushes can get to +18 armour and no penetration, for an effective armour of 26 + toughness bonus. Since weapons lose their penetration that's practically dreadnought level right there.

Defenstrator said:

Yeah but he needs to sustain it every round, at least. And he can't move. And the TT version is also very powerful iirc.

Alex

melta is dedicated anti tank weapon ? in TT maybe.

my great friend from our city RPG club told me that his group played DW RAW with new errata weapon stats (my group moved to gurps with DW). Main quest of rather long campaign were to destroy renegade tank unit supporting enemy forces in crucial front point. certain black templar assault marine first destroyed 2 enemy predators with his Munchkin Thundering Joy Hammer, then thx to concussive blows stomped deamon prince to paste, rescued rest of team and save the day. While tactical marine with his combiplasma killed 2 chaos space marines using 6 clips in the process. new TH is like old HB.

Btw. is it only me or Termie with PF and SB is one of lamest setting possible for 100points? (no dodge, no parry, no run, weak shooting, medicore melee)

As has been said, the TH is indeed out of balance right now. It is partly due to Concussive (which already made it an Elite/Master killer, let's face it), but now that it does these stupid amounts of damage, it has become the monster in DW. Surely it needs some adjustments.

The thing is, it is thematic for the TH to have a special rule about stunning people, but Concussive is too powerful, and Schocking utterly sucks ("big baddies" always have at least some Toughness, if only to not be chewed by a round of fire in their face...). There should be a rewriting of Concussive, IMHO, and also a writing off of the double Strength bonus : it does not need that to be badass. When you wield a TH, it's because you wanna be cool and tough, not the damage dealer in the group, IMHO. For that, you have the Power Fist and the Lightning Claws.

Lucius Valerius said:

That's been done, too.

However, to just up-stat other things in-line with the weapon that's a problem, you then also need to go and up-stat every monster, too. Which is a problem, because tougher guns and monsters mean that the whole game is upscaled. As we all know from running high level and low level games, upscaling makes the GM's job a bit harder, not only in the running (more to track), but also it becomes harder to run, because it becomes more difficult to set encounter difficulties without wiping the party by accident or making them a walk-over.

As much as I appreciate the attempt to get some balance into DW I don't think the radical nerfed Bolters are the solution. The reduced damage seems ok, but lowering the RoF doesn't sound like a good idea.

We tested the optional rules last weekend with our mixed group of DW-SM and Ascension-level DH-Characters and to our surprise the new Storm Bolters can't even match up with our Sororita and her Godwyn-De'az Storm Bolter.

Assume the Sororitas is able to hit with all 4 shots (8 Bolts), under the same conditions a SM with the same BS and the nerfed Storm Bolter only hits 2 times (4 Bolts) but MUST expand the same amount of ammo. So the average Damage (Penetration is the same) adds to 88 for the Sororita and 60 for the SM. This is over 1/4 less Damage and he has to waste 4 Bolts for nothing. This isn't right and I wonder when SM start to requisition Sororita's (or RT) Weapons because they are much better now. I hope this isn't the way how arm-mounted Storm Bolters for Grey Knights will be treated in the upcoming Daemon Hunter.

The RoF should be as it was before, maybe the Damage can be lowered once again instead and it will still be in line with the other updated weapons.
RoF S/2/4 Damage 1D10+8 Pen 4 , should do it for a Basic Bolter , now a Combi-Melta is real cool with the new stats for Meltas and the new Short-Range-Rule! If somone wants a badass Basic Bolter he can always requisition a Master-Crafted one.

Of course a SM Unarmed Damage is higher than a single Bolt, but first SM are really, really strong and second this Damge is not about punches only. Unarmed Master reflects their Martial Arts Skill and this is also about Kicks and Special Moves, which can be as deadly as a bullet in real life. Don't ask me how SM know the weak points of Xenos bodies (or even Machines), must be part of their training.

The new Rules for the HB work quiet well . If a Dev wants to go up against armored targets he has to get a Multi-Melta, Plasma Gun or Lascannon now. Some argued that the RoF of a DH-HB is higher but they forget that the extra 4 rounds are wasted most of the time, so it helps the Dev to conserve ammo. Even in real life SAW's for Special Forces have a lower RoF, to make them more controllable. If the Dev is overconfident in his shooting skills he can still add Bolter Drill wich was pointless under the old rules. There was no real difference between -/-/10 and -/-/11.

This leaves the Storm Bolter - Heavy Bolter match up. I suggest to simply raise the Storm Bolter's Req to 25 or even 30. This is the Bolter for the Elite, the HB is only a SAW.

Autoguns and Autopistols should get back their RoF as well and the Shotguns need a complete overhaul. Add some Penetrator Rounds and you get a very cheap Barrage Plasma Gun out of your Assault Shotgun which sounds really stupid.

New Xenos Weapon Stats seem to be ok, but the Tyranids lack some AT-Weapon and I don't mean upping their Meele Damage. Claws aren't able to rip apart armored vehicles regardless of how strong the creature is!

Stormast said:

You are right about concusive, for the damage I think it would be fine if it required both hands (unless they're wearing terminator armour).

Kain McDogal said:

Puts it out of reach of wargear, though. Whereas Plasma and Melta are both still on that sweet 20req spot. Stormbolter should certainly be another available choice to my-mind, and if that involves keeping to the published nerfed guidelines, then I think that preferable to a higher cost and effect.

Cutter said:

Sometimes I wonder if you are all forgetting what a Bolter is. A Bolter is NOT a gun is an automatic, armor piercing GRANADE LAUNCER. How can something like this NOT kill you outright after being hit in 4 or 6 times is behiond me. As for plasma and melta I do agree they need a bigger kick as they are anti-vehicle weapons.

Small video about the bolter (not made by me)

Lucius Valerius said:

Yes and Hive Tyrants and Daemon Princes should be able to shrug it off. With ease.

Alex

ak-73 said:

And unless you use special ammos they do. A Deamon Prince has at least Armor 12 and T 12, an Hive Tyrant Armor 10 and T 15, and both have a plenty of wounds. A bolter with his 2d10+5 and 5 pen can barelly scratch them unless you max all your rolls.

Considering both thr Astartes Combat Shotgun and the Barrage Plasma Gun have the same 'mistake' in (i.e. They both still have a FA RoF) and they are both from the same book, it seems very likely that those are an oversight... I'll simply remove the FA rating from those.

The Thunderhammer is also somewhat easy to fix... remove the STR modifier (it didn't need it anyway) and fix concussive by adding an upper limit to the Toughness penalty (-10 or -20, at most).

I'm looking forward to trying those out.

I know as a DM, I had a hard time keeping interested in the battle, because of how ridiculously deadly the players were.

Lucius Valerius said:

That's not the numbers I use though. Let's take the worst case: Tac with Bolter Mastery, Bolter Drill, Might Shot, Kraken rounds: 2d10+9 Tearing, Pen 8, ROF 5. Now if you use the new damage (and old ROF) this becomes 1d10 + 13 Tearing, Pen 8, ROF 5. I like the slightly lower damage output here,

Personally I'd use 2d10+3 Tearing, Pen 8, ROF 5 here but that's my own house rules.

Alex

ak-73 said:

And yet you had to go and use special ammo. Sure they are there in the rules and I love them (reason why I always field Sternguard in TT) but we are talking about the basic bolter. Also Bolter Mastery is a solo ability. who in his right mind whould go and fight a beast like a deamon prince or a hive tyrant on his own ? a rank 8 BA, AM/Chap maybe can do it..

You realize that Solo Abilities can be used even when surrounded by nine of your fellow squad mates?

The question is, who in their right mind would face a Hive Tyrant with only a bolter? That's why the Emperor grants you requisition points.

@deinol:

Sometimes that's all you got. Take Oblivion's Edge for example. You have been caught by surprise on a world being invaded by nids. If you expend all your good ammo, you fall back to your bolter.

Or a Librarian. He might under the Shadow of the Warp and has to fall back on the trusty bolter. Of course if a HT comes along, he better have some hellfire left or a Dev with a Lascannon or HB next to him.

Lucius Valerius said:

Why on his own? I can stand amidst the other marines and who use their squad mode abilities and use Bolter Mastery. Works wonderful with the IF or DA Solo mode ability. And if the team has high Cohesion, you can reliably switch into Squad mode with a free action. If you got a charging HT and Bolter Mastery, using the ability is an option if the KT has settlled on the strategy on trying to take him down before he makes contact.

As for Kraken rounds, they are a standard requisition for about every kill-team, just exactly for such cases. Especially for a Tac who gets a clip for free. In The Russian's PbP game we have about 4 Tacs, all with Bolter Mastery. What I described above is a realistic enough scenario for Tacs, many players will seek to maximize Boltgun damage output in such a manner. Oh and double the damage with a Storm Bolter.

If you are a DW GM and have a Tac in your party who goes the Bolter route, you can expect to see such a set-up when he reaches rank 4 or so.

In the end we're arguing about small differences: 2 points of damage difference per hit, that's 2 to 10 damage. Personally, I'd like to see the Bolter slightly nerfed, so that it's pretty much negligible against the master class enemies (except when using hellfire or vengeance maybe) while still effective enough against elite-tiers like the Nid Warrior or Genestealers.

You'll have to note though that there is a certain consensus here that nerfing both damage and ROF has been a bit too hard as a hit.

Alex

Kain McDogal said:

Bolter Drill was a bit "meh" for Heavy Bolters, but it was quite interesting for normal bolters... now it has reversed, as the move to Semi-Auto means that a boost from 3-4 rounds is unlikely to matter that much, as you would need to get 6 degrees of success to take advantage of it... not impossible, but far less interesting than getting 5 hits with 4 degrees of success.

"A Bolter is NOT a gun is an automatic, armor piercing GRANADE LAUNCER." - No it isn't. It is a large calibre rocket assisted assault rifle which fires explosive rounds that only explode on penetrating a target. It has no area suppression function (aside from that granted by any other small arms), it doesn't scatter shrapnel everywhere (Metal Storm aside, but it is meant to be rare), and it's armour penetration (I am meaning against vehicles here) is... bleh.

boruta666 said:

If you read canon, Bolt rounds explode inside the target and make a big hole. Power fists simply blow holes straight through orc torsos. Bolt pistols are not weak, but comparing them to a powerfist is going to make them look less than stellar. Cutting back to hazy memories of RT, a bolt pistol was 1.5 points. A power fist 15. Which do you think should be better?

And yes: The Thunderhammer is broken. And always was. Have you just noticed? And if you let someone wield two of them in power armour, then you need to give yourself a rap on the knuckles with a ruler.

borithan said:

I can live with that. I wouldn't expect to port in Spymaster characters into 3.5 or WoD vampires and mages into a werewolf game without doing a lot of rebalancing. Especially as the different 40k games cover such a wide divergence of power levels and themes.

I'll start by saying I haven't had a chance to actually play with the optional weapon stats yet, though from what I can tell they're definitely a step in the right direction.

Has anyone tried house-ruling the new optional damage stats with the RAW ROF? I'd like to see how that would work out.

Lucius Valerius said:

I've got to disagree with your analysis of this, 16+ (for the more hardy HT) out of 2d10 tearing is hardly scratch changes, especially with hiting 4 shots per turn AND most importantly scoring a RF every third hit ( aprox ).

And that is the the standard weapon against the toughest opponant in the game so far with no special ammo or modes or talants that everyone has. Only in the unlikely event that no one thinks to use any of the above a HT might last a while, all other elites and masters will die in unspectacular seconds.

Regardless of everything else, why do people keep trying to convince us that the basic starting weapons should be roughly equivelent to things you spend cold hard reasources on?

That's because people are gazing at movie Marines' bolters.

But the fallacy here is to disregard the other weapons. These are not "Your average plasma pistol any rich sucker in the Imperium can get" eiter. They are the Deathwatch's finest weapons, Astartes weapons...The Big E's gift.

So yeah, bolters should be deadly. And they still are imho. The thing is, now, you understand why Spess Mehreens often cary something else as special ammo for their bolter (except for the "We didn't get special ammo supplies" excuse): because when you're faced with the biggest monsters in the galaxy, normal bolters may not do the trick anymore. No to say they suck. They're just not made to bring a HT down. I wouldn't call it a flaw

Siranui said:

Boruta wasn't talking about the power fist, he was comparing the boltgun with an unarmed attack by an Astartes. An unarmed Rank 8 Assault Marine makes a boltgun look like it hardly does any damage.

Alex

D'oh. Good point. Though it's worth pointing out that it's hardly just a punch. The other 40k games have unarmed damage as only doing d5s, I believe. Marines doing d10 is representative of their uber-leet-martial-arts-stuffz.

Which is apparently just as deadly as sticking two feet of mono-edged metal into someone, according to the stats.

Siranui said:

Have you ever been hit in the face by a heavy weight champio boxer ? say someone like Mike Tyson in his prime ? Now immagine someone 3 times bigger (he's a dwarf =P), 2 times stronger and 10 times meaner. That kind of kinetic impact CAN and will kill you. The strength alone is bad enough but this guys know exactly where to him to max the damage dealt to a person. I'd rather go against a john do with a knife than a martial art master.