Since my group is nearing Ascencion rank my Arbitrator-Player asked me about his weapon options. He wants to continue to use shotguns as he feels that they are kind of a trademark for Arbites, but in his opinion the Shotguns in the Core and Inquisitors Handbook are quite underpowered if you want to take on some of the tougher enemies.

The easiest solution would of course to just use bolters or heavy weapons like everyone else, but he asked me why there was no full-automatic, room sweeping shotgun like the modern AA-12 for example. Surely the Imperium has the technology to make it work? And since a jumped up Power-Maul is already in Ascension, i wasn´t averse to the idea of making a new Shotgunweapon too.

So i poured some thought into the matter, and tried to design a powerful shotgun. Mind, it is intended for ascenced/near ascended level and so it should be quite powerful. But since i lack design experience, i would very much like to hear your thoughts on this.

Stormfront Pattern Assault Shotgun

Like the Bolters for the mighty Astartes, the Shotgun and the Shock-Maul are the symbols and trademark weapons of his most holy Emincence`s Adeptus Arbites. While the Standard Shotgun, the Pump-Action Shotgun and even the Combat Shotgun may serve the common arbitrator well enough, and powerful models like the Vanaheim and the Blackhammer find their good use amongst his Majestys Navy, Arbitrators in service of the Inquisition often find that they need a weapon which packs a greater punch to properly chastise HIS enemies, be it the vile xenos or the foul daemon. Hand-manufactored by skilled artisans and Magi of the Lathe-System, each of these thrice-blessed, double barreled and full-automatic weapons is as much a work of art as tool to smash HIS enemies.

Stormfront Pattern Assault Shotgun

Type: Basic, SP Range: 30 Metres RoF: S/2/4 Clip: 20 (Ammo-Drum) Damage: 1w10+4 Pen: 0 Special Qualities: Scatter, Storm

Unique Properties: Due to the reinforced and sanctioned firing mechanism, the Stormfront Shotgun ist able to fire Executioner-Shells in Semiautomatic Mode

Availability: Very rare , Good Craftsmanship included

Sounds nice, perhaps you could give him special shells (Into the Storm, Rogue trader Core, Rites of Battle).

Brutal, indiscriminate, gory. Shotgun-ey. Like that

Since Storm doubles a weapons ammo use, you are looking at 8 shells per full auto burst. Which gives you 2.5 FA bursts. I'm not a fan of weapons with a fire rate that doesn't evenly divide the clip size.

What's the reload time ?

Also, 4 cover ignoring Executioner rounds, which only need you to roll 10 under your BS ?

Sounds nasty. Though it would also be nasty with acid shells (Into the Storm). They deal 2d10 damage, then the acid starts eating away at the targets flesh. They also melt armour.

**** i knew i forgot SOME stat.

Reload should be 2 Full and the Magsize would be 24 (covering 3 Full Automatic Bursts)

Well yes the thing is **** nasty, but since it has to compete with the likes of Stormbolters, all kinds of Heavy weapons and so on, i thought it should be. And even an influental Arbitrator will have trouble procuring enough Executioner Ammo to go full-auto all the time. The cover ignoring thing is nice, but doesn´t help against those real tough enemies who don´t even need cover, or who are armored up to the teeth. One/Two shots with 1w10+8 damage and Pen 1 (for a single Executioner Shell) didn´t strike me as that powerful, compared to the enemies my players will face. Of course this weapon will make extremely short work of mooks, but which ascended weapon doesn´t?

But perhaps i have to think about this a bit more. Thanks for the input everyone

When reading over the text of executioner rounds, I get the impression that the single shot only limit is not because of recoil (or any other stress during firing) but because any higher firing mode would make it too hard for the cogitator to lock onto the target. If true, this would mean that even "single shot" mode on a storm weapon would be a problem, because that still fires two rounds.

As for damage:

- Executioner round is 1d0+8, pen 1. Which averages to 13.5 pen 1

- Bolt rounds are 1d10+5, pen 4, tearing. Average: 12.15, pen 4

So an enemy only needs 3 AP for the bolter to be more damaging per hit. Less when you factor in that the storm bolter can land more hits. It only gets tricky when the enemy has solid (will probably stop a bolt round) cover.

So the only time where I might claim this storm shotgun is overpowered in comparison is if it's using acid shells as, unlike most high-end shotgun ammo, they don't remove the scatter quality.

I like it, doesn't seem OP at all plus it's nice and fluffy for an abitrator to keep a shotgun

The microcogitators are in the bullets themselves so I don't think it'd be any harder for them to lock on as they'd all act independently, more bullets = more cogitators.

weasel said:

How does the cogitator know what the target is ?

There is no mention of modifying the shotgun, which means the cogitator must work it out after it comes out of the gun. The gun will be pointed in the general direction of the target, so it only needs to consider a narrow cone in front of itself. On single shot, that cone could contain:

- The target, which will probably be moving, and if it's not the arbites should be a good enough shot to hit him anyway.

- Cover. Which is stationary. Easy enough to avoid.

- Enemy bullets. Unlikely if the cone is narrow enough and possibly moving too fast (relative to the executioner round) to be targeted, and on a rather fixed course.

- A living being other than the target. Probably the next target, so it doesn't matter if they get hit by accident.

Now lets say someone fires a burst. For the first round, no problem. But the second round has one thing in its cone that first doesn't: The first round which, if operating correctly, is probably sitting directly between the target and the second round. That's bound to mess up targeting. Maybe the second round can't find the target, maybe it thinks that the first round is the target.

Remember, even though we are talking about tech too advanced for the Imperium to understand, we are still talking about a round that, when designed, was cheap enough that it could be considered ammo. Since this is with the propulsion and stabilisation system, the cogitator shouldn't be too impressive.

Two fired simultaneously by a storm weapon sounds like it could work. Up until both decide to take the same route and collide.

Thats where i handwaved the "sanctioned and modified firing mechanism". Just an advanced cogitator inbuilt in the shotgun who helps find the Executioner Shells their way towards their target, so more of them can be fired in short notice.

To be honest the whole system of the selfguided rounds doesn´t make much sense in the first way. A kind of lock-on integrated in the weapon which lets bullets then circumvent cover? Believeable. Self-cogitated rounds? How do they determine which target the Arbitrator wants to hit anyways? Kind of strikes me as one of these classic "Cool, but not really plausible" Ideas Warhammer has in spades.

I've always assumed that they just aimed at what the cogitators decided it was most likely they were aimed at, i.e. the human-like thing most in front of them. That's why you still make a bs test, to take into account the chance you've aimed a bit off and they've locked on to the orphans off to the left.

And I think having the bullets lock onto the one in front of them is perfect, assuming they're both travelling as fast as they can and the second bullet doesn't overtake the first, then the second bullet can simply follow the first to the target.

There is an automatic shotgun. Page 134 of Inquisitor's Handbook, the Skitarii Vanaheim-Pattern Assault Shotgun.

Skitarii Vanaheim-Pattern Assault Shotgun

Class Range RoF Damage Pen Clip Reload Special Weight Cost

Basic 40m S/3/6 1d10+4 0 15 Full Scatter 8Kg 300

The availability is Scarce. Anyhoo, just add a "Fire-Selector" for extra ammo (total of 45 rounds) and your set.

I love Arbites, I've seen some nice arbites armies out their and I always though it would be ace to have soem Grand Marshall in Terminator armour with a storm shotgun or have a Repressor with a storm shotgun instead of a bolter.

I think Quartermus brings up a valid point. Your Stormfront isn't much of an improvement on the Vanaheim auto-shotgun, which is admittedly one of the strongest short range weapons in the game to begin with, especially with specialized ammo.

If you're looking for an AA-12, the Vanaheim fits the bill and provides a great baseline to work with.

Another option but going in the opposite direction from a full-auto weapon might be the Blackhammer shotgun from the IH armory. Its massively hard hitting but slow firing. Specialized up-sized ammo from a Blackhammer could do major damage I should think.

For an Ascension level weapon, removing the Blackhammer's single-shot capacity and upgrading it to a 6 round magazine could make for a viable option I think.

Alternatively, if you wanted a shotgun on your shotgun so that you could shotgun while you shotgun, you could go for a Vanaheim/Blackhammer combi weapon. The upgraded Vanaheim for all-purpose encounters, and the Blackhammer (possibly with specialized ammo) for those big bads that just need to die now. The best of both worlds in one (slighty bulky) package.

Working on an Ascended Judge at the moment as well, and was distressed to see how few options there are at that level for an arbiter...except to go boltgun. I LOVE the idea of a vanaheim with a blackhammer combi actually.