For those who have not seen broken chains I will tell you of updates to rules

1) swift attack is one attack roll, the initial hit hits, and every 2 dos after is another hit (semi auto melle i guess) and only a half action

2)standard attack is +10, semi auto is +0, full auto is -10

3) skills list goes to +30

4)weapon damage rules are post errata

5)infamy replaces fate points, apparently its derived from your infamy (renown), it works as in rogue trader/dark heresy (1d5 on heal)

6)size modifier doesnt add 1 to base movement, ie. agi bonus only

7)Dodge (action not skill) is renamed evasion (dont see a point in this as it seems to work the same)

Whoops, forgot to mention Im unaware if this is going to spread to the other games or be black crusade only.

Swift attack is still a full action. +0 instead of +10 like standard attacks.

Size modifiers not doing things is probably a demo rules thing, like Final sanction.

I'm definitely not a fan of the push to make melee so superior to ranged combat. Luckily I have no plans to add BC to the other 40k RPGs I already have, and the new rules will likely just reinforce that.

Brand said:

Different strokes for different folks I guess, as I feel completely the opposite.

IMO melee involves greater risk for those involved, and should therefore for reasons of game balance carry greater reward. I think that the changes being described merely bring melee and ranged into greater parity, though possibly at the risk of making them a bit samey.

harlokin said:

Give ranged bonuses to hit from things like weapon quality, ganging up, and multiple Talents like Hatred and then you'll have some parity. As it is, you're looking at a lot more bonuses to melee attacks now than ranged. Full-auto weapons like the HB become wastes of ammo, even the new HB with the lower RoF. Your best bet is to use a single shot weapon with a lot of power, but then you run the risk of your enemy completely avoiding your attack easily.

Ranged bonuses mostly come from 3 sources: semi- or full-auto (which under the new rules is a negative instead), opponent's size/Magnitude, and possibly range (again, often a negative). WS bonuses come from size, ganging up, weapon quality, Double Team, Hatred, Hunter of Aliens... (we're already at +60 or more). And there are awesome Talents like Killing Strike and Stalwart Defense that, again, only work for melee. If you want to nerf bonuses for ranged attacks down, fine, but give them the same bonuses as melee. There's a reason modern armies don't see the enemy and think to immediately pull out their knives and charge.

Melee is more dangerous against a Genestealer, but it's exactly where you want to be against the Tau. Which place is more dangerous depends entirely on the circumstances and who you're fighting.

To use a slightly facile numbers argument, I think that there are probably more nasties that would look to chew a poor Astartes in melee rather than those who use ranged attacks. .

That said, I would welcome Weapon Quality, Hatred, and Hunter of Aliens also aplying to ranged under these rules.

The only thing I disagree with you on is the " modern armies don't see the enemy and think to immediately pull out their knives and charge " argument. Assault Marines exist because the idea is cool, not because it makes sense in a real world context. A game (both TT and RPG) where the Space Marines just sniped and barraged their enemies from miles away would be dull indeed.

"To use a slightly facile numbers argument, I think that there are probably more nasties that would look to chew a poor Astartes in melee rather than those who use ranged attacks. ."

That depends on the nasties. Looking at the big three enemies, Tyranids favor melee, Chaos is both (a mirror of the SMs, basically), and the Tau favor ranged. I'd say it's pretty well balanced.

"That said, I would welcome Weapon Quality, Hatred, and Hunter of Aliens also aplying to ranged under these rules."

This is what needs to happen, under these rules. I'm fine with bringing the rules in line to make them more symmetrical (I'm guessing Lightning Attack will be the melee full auto: -10 to hit and an extra hit per degree of success). Not even all of those Talents need to work both ways, but there should at least be comparable Talents for ranged as well with the new rules. The advantage of ganging up in melee (+10-30 or more with Talents and Signum Link) vs ranged (+5 if you spend a lot of Requisition, stay in Squad Mode, and/or have some Renown; maybe +10 if you have Tech-Use and waste a round) should also be addressed.

"The only thing I disagree with you on is the "modern armies don't see the enemy and think to immediately pull out their knives and charge" argument. Assault Marines exist because the idea is cool, not because it makes sense in a real world context. A game (both TT and RPG) where the Space Marines just sniped and barraged their enemies from miles away would be dull indeed. "

Again, I'm fine with making the two sides equal, but as-is with the new rules melee does more damage and has more bonuses on average. An Assault Marine flying into combat is cool, but he shouldn't do it blindly. At least he can give the enemy a lot of negatives to hit (even better with the new rules). The poor Techmarine should get chewed up if he blindly charges at the nest of Tau waiting to gun him down. Charging is all well and good, but I prefer if the game encourages the players to use their heads and think outside the box rather than spend every fight trying to get into melee.

I'm not someone who awaited BC eagerly and would have bought it only to have some new resources for the other W40K RPGs, but under the new stupid ranged stats I will keep my hands of. Our group will not rework every entry in the old books only because of some traumatic Heavy-Bolter-killed-my-Hive-Tyrant-in-one-round-experience.

I'm not opposed to balancing meele and ranged combat, especially if it comes to sci-fi meele weapons, in fact one of the first things I didn't like about DH was that a chainsaw designed for battle did only as much damage as a normal rifle bullet, but the most stupid solution is to decrease the hit-probability of ranged weapons if upping the damage of the meele weapon in question does the same trick. And yes, this would mean bad news for the adversaries but a GM can always send more baddies to hurt the party, so what's the deal?

It's still possible that these are just simplified rules for the Free RPG Day adventure. I'll wait for the full BC release before I pass judgement.

Lex1nat0r said:

Oh, I absolutely agree. The full rule set will tell more, I expect, but until we see it all we can work with is what's been released. I certainly hope there will be other changes to keep things balanced. Weakened HB + Tyranid Guard + new Tyranid psychic powers have already changed Hive Tyrants from easy targets to insanely deadly opponents that can easily take down a DW team.

I'd play with the changes before passing judgement, it seemed to work fine in Broken Chains.

Full auto is just not the go-to attack any more, and swift and lightning attack work the same way, so it's more the same.

Hatreds and hunter talents just make up for gunsights and safer aim actions. Really the biggest difference is more Swift attacks, semi-auto fire, and aimed standard attacks.

I really enjoyed the changes myself, combat is much less "full auto/lightning attack every round" It's quite refreshing, and makes players look for what works the best right then.

Full auto is still great, just expect fewer hits, which with weapons which hit real hard doesn't matter all that much.

If you're really worried about HB's losing too much give them semi auto or maybe even single shot modes. Or just suppress with it, and let the squad-mates kill things with aimed semi-auto fire.

I wouldn't worry much.

Hatreds and hunter talents just make up for gunsights and safer aim actions. Really the biggest difference is more Swift attacks, semi-auto fire, and aimed standard attacks.

What gunsights? All weapon mods are limited to certain types of guns, and Heavy Weapons like the HB receive no love there. They had full auto and that was about it, mechanically. And how is sacrificing a Half or even Full Action equal to a Talent that grants a bonus to both attack and defend?

Hatred + Hunter = +20 to melee attacks and Parry, +2 damage

Full Aim = +20 to BS, lose a turn (also notice that the Aim action can also be used to improve melee)

Yeah, that's not nearly the same thing.

Full auto is still great, just expect fewer hits, which with weapons which hit real hard doesn't matter all that much.

There aren't a lot of full auto weapons left, and they certainly don't hit hard compared to other guns. The new Heavy Bolter pales in comparison to the single-shot heavy weapons like lascannons and multi-meltas as far as damage goes.

The new rules would amount to a -30 penalty to the full auto HB. That's 3 hits and pretty significant. It really hurts the usefulness of Talents like Bolter Drill since they now will almost always amount to wasted ammo. The rules CAN work but there needs to be a shift in ranged Talents away from small damage bonuses towards bonuses to hit.

If you're really worried about HB's losing too much give them semi auto or maybe even single shot modes. Or just suppress with it, and let the squad-mates kill things with aimed semi-auto fire.

If you kill the HB's lethality to that extent, the other heavy weapons become necessities instead of just awesome alternatives. Why pass on an awesome lascannon for a gun whose sole purpose is apparently to just waste lots of ammo? The first response is for Hordes, but it's lethality there has just been seriously compromised. There are weapons, even relics, that have RoFs of 10 or even 12. Those are pointless since even getting close to that many hits becomes impossible. Heavy weapons should be effective against big, nasty enemies, not loud popguns that just do a little more damage against Hordes of weak enemies than other weapons.

Fortunately, the rules changes are for a separate game, and balanced with that in mind. Not even that really; but a stripped-down demo version of a new game. I don't think many play-groups would bother importing rules to DW from another system. It'd be like importing Spymaster rules to 3.5.

A -10 penalty would shift it, obviously, into being a penalty rather than a bonus.

Firing against a horde, it's easily compensated. Since bonuses can't surpass 60, and firing full auto against a horde means it's pretty automatic, just means you have to fill up the final "lost" 20% from somewhere else.

Attack Patterns, Signature Wargear, Motion Predictors and Signum's should be able to cover it - and then probably some things I've missed and - while not always accessible from the get-go, costing some requisition or experience, you're still only off some 10% if you're going for the maximum accuracy, which is one hit at times.

Against a single target, it's harder to hit that +60 as easily, which means you can loose a shot or three firing an anti-horde weapon against a single target. Not all doom and gloom. The Emperor forgive, but you may even have to aim the wretched gun to assure deadlyness at times.

I feel this goes the way of all later editions - they may be more balanced, but they are certainly more boring.

Siranui said:

I've run through more than a few test combats importing chunks of the Black Crusade combat system into Deathwatch... to be honest, I prefer the results to Deathwatch RAW (amongst other things, it works better with the weapon stats from the errata - a Bolter without Full-Auto isn't as handicapped when single shot and semi-auto are both entirely viable options rather than the poor cousins of full-auto), and will be implementing the changes as house rules to my campaign as soon as I'm allowed to discuss them with my group (awkward situation - I'm under NDA, my players aren't, so I can't talk to them about my writing until the book hits the shelves).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Well now I want to try them out. I'd like the next errata will list all the significant changes as optional rules so we get them in a semi-official capacity.

Lex1nat0r said:

I'm not certain there is really that much of a need. I mean, its not like there is an organized play environment or tournaments. Any group that wants to vary the rules can and will.

I know, it's just that I'd just like to have them nicely compiled in one document so I don't have to go wantonly tinkering with rules.

It's true. It is about time for a Dark Heresy Revised book.