We switched to the 'alternate weapon stats' and didn't look back.

The old stats felt wrong to us, with the crushing superiority of the ranged weapons over melee, and the unattractiveness of anything other than a HB or SB after you hit Distinguished renown.

New stats more me as well, combined with the Broken Chains fire rate rules. They just seem to work better together, and the Storm bolter can have Full Auto without breaking things so badly.

H.B.M.C. said:

Taking 'Storm' away from the SB more or less means no weapons has that annoying quality. Giving it full-auto + Storm makes it equal (or superior if you keep the old max RoF of 4) to the HB in term of hits, with slightly less damage per hit alright, but the possibility of firing Hellfire rounds on Full-Auto. Which sounds silly enough for me to say that you cant have a S/*/4 Storm SB, even with the new damages.

For my group I found that for bolt weapons the golden middle ground was the old RoF and the new damage output, that seemed to be the best over all solution and still letting the weapons retain their ability to suppress while toning down the somewhat overbalanced damage output that 2d10+5 damage gave them.

I like the new weapon stats, but I've made a house-rule which allows suppressing fire with single shots and semi-auto (both option being significantly weaker than full auto, though). The nice thing about is that when any shooting weapon can suppress the fire fights will typically see everyone else except truly fearless guys like Space Marines, Daemons and Tyranids looking for cover. Which, I think, is the way it should be.

The alternate rules came out towards the very end of my deathwatch campaign. I didn't introduce them at that late stage because the campaign was nearly over and I hadn't had time to familiarise myself with them.

I *am* using the new rules in an Dark Heresy: Ascension campaign set in the Jericho Reach. I've advised the players that they don't want to be shot by pulse weapons. But that was always the case. There is less chance of righteous fury from astartes bolt weapons (loyalist and traitor) which should make space marines more usable as allies or opponents.

I'm also thinking about using the modifications to melee and ranged attack options in the Black Crusade introductory adventure.

We're using the alternate rules, they work well enough with a few exceptions. We've also changed the stormbolter to be S/4/6 with no storm quality. (Kinda silly but it works well enough).

1) The new less swingy bolter (1d10+9 vs 2d10+5) generally means standard CSM's can't hurt our "Tough Guy" marines. Max damage plus pen is like 23, the techmarine and the librarian have 24+ reduction (including armour) on their body locations. Admittedly with the old rules the CSM's would need to roll high to hurt them, but currently it looks like they might need some adjustment.

2) We don't have a devastator anymore, so I can't comment on the Heavy Bolter with any authority. We've got 4 stormbolters out of 5 players though.

3) The Thunderhammer is just unfair.

4) We like the new Plasma rules.

On a side note, how many people have players that go without helmets? We've got a Space Wolf Assault Marine and a Blood Angel Librarian that are rocking out with their hair out. So far they haven't copped too many bolts to the face, but I think it's just a matter of time.

wraithstalker said:

Nb: this is not to start a discussion about stats, but they way I have done, is to allow my players to switch 6 fixed damage, for an extra dice. And its 50/50 who chose what. (So either 1d10+9 or 2d10+3)

In many ways I wasn't too keen on SBs loosing the ability to suppress. But then I looked at how bad suppression was, and the kind of weapons that still did it, and how hard it was to pass suppression checks and thought 'fair enough, really'. SBs are still fine weapons.

I don't have kind of attachment to the 'storm' special quality, and maybe it is a bit odd to have SBs have a semi rate of fire and 'storm' instead of a fully auto rate of 8, but frankly that would make SBs just that little bit too effective and would once again moot most other weapon choices.

wraithstalker said:

I don't think you're wrong to call the thunder hammer that. It needs a fix. Badly.

Also: Ammo of '1' on all combi weapons needs a revision.

And about half of the special ammunition needs either rewriting in order to make it worth using, or needs clearer explaination.

wraithstalker said:

Brother Ulris of the Space Wolves is a die-hard no-helmet man. Everyone else thinks he is stupid as hell for going bare-headed and constantly tease him for it. I think in last mission the mission leader actually tried to order him to put helmet on when they were climbing 10 kilometers above the sea level inside a broken hive... air got really thin out there, but the stubborn Space Wolf just gritted his teeth and pushed on without the life-support system. I'm pretty sure that by now it has become such a symbol of personal heroism to him that he'll never wear helmet outside hard vacuum

Siranui said:

Well I wasn't talking of giving SBs a RoF of S/4/8 here of course (although it is less powerful than S/2/4 Storm already...Silly Storm), more like S/2/4 or S/2/5. Still inferior to the HB (hope so!), but really cool anyway. But their damage output would still be limited, so if you plan on taking down tanks or Dagon Overlords, you may want to gear with some plasma or melta.

I'm really not too attached on "Storm", because "Storm" isn't about "double hitting", it's about having a high rate of fire thanks to two barrels shooting alternatively. If you want double-hitting, see Twin-Linked (tweak it maybe).

As for the TH I think everyone agrees on that.

Combi weapons, yeah, they need reworking, quite clearly.

As for the special ammo, though, I don't think they all need to be reworked...most of them may have some usefulness. It's just one or two cases where per RAW they seem utterly useless.

Well... maybe three of the ammo types are worth using at the moment: Metalstorm, Hellfire and Kraken. I'm dubious about all the others.

Witchbolts need some additional fluff to perhaps ignore psyker-powered forcefield and other defences, and also to perhaps negate the extra toughness due to whateverthetraitiscalledthatdemonshavethatincreasestheirtoughnessagainst'normal'weapons. As at the moment they are pretty rubbish: -1 psi level on an eldar warlock, you say? Well, gee that's great... after shooting him 5 times he'll be quite hampered... oh wait... after shooting him 5 times, he'll already be DEAD three times over!

Dragonfire is also not exactly great, and implosion rounds verge on useless.

Oh: Stalker I guess are fine.

Our group unanimously voted to use the errata, although most of us wanted to keep the old ROF, except the GM.

In my own game I use errata+ old rate of fire, which I think work better with Dark Heresy crossover.

In the first real combat the Acolytes kicked ass with Accurate Weapons, and small horde of elite IG with high-powered Lasguns (Sollex Death Light) did all the damage in a long-range engagement while the Space Marine was running and acting as bullet-magnet.

Once closer combat encounters comes I suppose the SM with FA bolter will do well, but so will the acolytes with Lightening attack+ power swords, or the psyker with Force Sword and PSI rating 5. Most normal enemies are taken out by normal autogun damage anyway (with Mighty Shot and Manstopper rounds,or dual-wielding gunslingers with melta or plasma pistols.

I just did my second DW sesion and used the new stats. I had a litle complaining about no full auto on Bolters but not much. The group agreed that they are for short controled bursts and not surpressive fire(thats why we have devastators folks!). My group is now looking at different weapon types and not just the bolter spam. Im a big plasma fan and lets be honest a bolter with 2d10+5 compared to a plasma gun with 1d10+9 was always gonna be taken regardless of differnce in pen or the plasma overcharge.

As far as the stats from other games Ie RT and DH are concerned im not worried about the continuity. They are different games and we have a GM for both I want to keep them separate and the stats are irrelavant to me. If you really want to just fudge it thats the beauty of a roleplaying game. As i look through the campaigns and books available I find glaring holes in the dice system anyhow. Check the difference between Stealers in Final Sanction(2d10+12 with razor sharp), Mark of Xenos(1d10+12) and then Emperor protects(1d10+14 at pen 7 with razor sharp and they can use 4 attacks when they charge!).

Make stuff up as the story and characters dictate(theses are the most important things to any campaign) just be sure to stay consistent!

The emperor protects.

Yeah but as for Stealers, it could be accounted for by the background: there are numerous breeds of tyranids, each one is unique, etc, etc...