Greetings,

I call out to you PLAYERS (not the GM´s!).

While I poundered a certain fight in a certain modul I am not going to spoil, I realized that this was the first time I ecountered a use for a heavy weapon talent in a game. Later, I realized that -none- of my own scenarios ever offered use for any heavy weapon talent. Turning into literally into a waste of xp for every player in my group ..IF they would have them.

My question: Did you as a player actuall made use of a HW-Talent? If so, in which condidtion

Please Take Note: Be general/vague about the description and do not SPOILER anything if you talk about "FFG-Material". Other players who have not played this -yet- might be reading

Please Take Note: Do not tell me about situation where you could imagine this talent to be useful. I really and only want to know about actual uses of the
past from actual players.

Thanks!

My first Rogue Trader character, Magos Militant Marcellus Lucian (Explorator class), made a point of taking Heavy Weapons Training (SP) as soon as possible. The dynasty had retrieved an archaotech chain cannon (stubber with the tearing and storm qualities) and he wanted to use it in combat. He found it awkward to use in a tunnel fight against agile xenos, rarely getting a clear shot at them. But he did use it to good effect in a later battle against a daemonhost. With non-blessed ammunition, he scored several hits and caused damage with a number of them. The sheer number of rounds he could fire stood to him.

Hi Decessor,

hmm...Chaincannons. Thanks for that, I know a pc that will be drooling all over it

I built my guardsman from the start to use heavy weapons (basing him on Bragg from Gaunt's Ghosts).

After getting HW(sp) I went for the "bulging biceps" talent (RT definition of it). So, that he could use a heavy stubber or assault stubber is just like using a basic weapon, like an autogun. The fact that it's a "heavy weapon" becomes a non-issue, it's just like using a lasgun at that point.

To do this though a character has to be strong enough in order to lift/carry the heavy weapon based on the chart of lifting limits. Right now my character is at 70 strength, and 81 toughness (thanks to brute mutation), putting most heavy weapons' weight at a fraction of his lifting and carry weight limit.

There are many man-portable heavy weapons, and based on how strong/tough the cahracter is the more options they have. Just because a single module has a heavy weapon to use doesn't mean that's the only time characters can have access to them. Heavy stubbers are popular because of cost, heavy-bolters if you can fund it, missile launchers, RPGs, lascannons, or what ever the character can lift and carry comfortably. My character have used heavy stubbers, an assault stubber, RPG, naval shot-cannon, heavy-flamer, auto-cannons (hydra platform), and other heavy weapons throughout missions.

We even made up a home-brew pistol and sniper rifle that counts as a heavy weapon because of the ammo they use.

Getting the HW talents is a no-brainer if the character is built to use them. Questioning the usefullness of HW talents is like questioning the usefulness of Pistol or Basic weapon talents. If you plan to use the weapon you better have the ability to use it.

You know what really ruins your day?

Finding yourself in a chimera, with twin heavy bolters, a dead guard regiment, surrounded by chaos cultists and no one in the party can fire the **** things. This was not a hypothetical, the GM was sure at least one member of the party should be able to fire the heavy bolters. We had to resort to chucking a case of frag grenades through the various hatches and praying to The Emperor that we ran out of cultists before we ran out of grenades.

Gregorius21778 said:

You're welcome. The original is in the Rogue Trader adventure book "Lure of the Expanse".

I personally haven't had a character with a heavy weapon (did have a mechanicus secutor with full on machinator array and one of his arms replaced with a breacher drill though, if you count that as heavy ) however i have used assorted mounted heavy weapons from time to time.

Personally i'm of the opinion that heavy weapons haven't been handled in the system very well. I think all of them should have exceedingly long reload times unless you have someone carrying ammo/energy cells/tripod gear for you, or indeed only allow reloading when paired with someone else. There's just a few too many Bulging biceps/Strength 50+ guardsmen with heavy bolters or assault cannon or what have you for my liking.

Kasatka said:

like you have a crap-laod of autogun welding acolytes, with manstopper rounds, silencer, red-dot and fire selector instead of everyone and their mother having lasguns like it should be; it,s not abour realism in the universe, it's about being the top Acolyte ever.

Hi Catachan, Hi Kith,

actually, I would like to know about a moment where your pc actually used the weapons

Thanks

Used once, by the party Arbitrator, in an underground cave system. Not very effective, it was cumbersome and he had to waste time bracing while the rest of us dealt out death. Really Heavy weapons are only useful for a few rare situations or if your character is specifically built for it.

The last time my guardsman used a heavy weapon it was an assault stubber (one with storm trait) on a ship being boarded by Dark Elder. There were no shortage of targets around every corner. The stubber shredded the Dark Eldar nicely. Felt like I was playing as the Terminator. No bracing required with the right talents.

I do prefer weapons with an area of effect though, like flamers and grenade launchers. Even if you miss you still hit something.

One DH game we had a player who was toting a heavy stubber around. Even with bulging biceps, the pc using a single bolt pistol seemed much more effective than the stubber (mainly bad luck on the stubber guys part).

My first character in RT was a Explorator running around with a Retobi pattern missile launcher on his back. At one time my group stumbled upon an ork mob, around 10 ork boyz with a nob. Though it took some time to brace it, my missile launcher was the only weapon in the party that could effectively damage and kill the orks.

at the time we were all rank 1 and I did not have HW training (launcher) but that did not stop me from using it and it turn out pretty good, none of us died so I would call that a success

In an Adventure where my group of Acolythes had to retrieve something from a Space Hulk the Multilaser the Bulging Biceps Guardsman brought was very useful in some fights. But in others the requirement to first brace to not get the nasty -30 penalty to hit was noticeable and meant he often only got one or if lucky two salvos out till the beasties were in melee. And against the intelligent opponents we met there he was their primary target once they saw what he was chugging around.

Catachan said:

I dont know aboutRogue Trader´s talents, but the DH "Bulging Biceps" talent just allows you to fire Semi- and Full Auto when not being braced, instead of only being able to fire single shot. The -30 penalty to hit for not being braced still applies even for a character with Bulging Biceps when the weapon is not braced first.

Noctus said:

I would suggest you get your hands on DW and RT for better talent descriptions. We played Bulging Biceps like you described until I noticed RT and DW described it differently. Same with Frenzy description in DW. So, we decided to use our DW book as the errata for our DH game whenit comes to talents.

Noctus said:

These weapons are mainly for suppression fire and for overwatch, not killing things right off.

I once ran a combat engineer (home-brewed rank 2 Guardsman alternative rank) who had Heavy Weapons Training (Launcher) as he was trained, among other things, to run certain vehicle-based mine-laying systems as well as man-portable anti-armor weapons. I had put in a request for a list of equipment and was quite surprised when my requisition request for a missile launcher was approved. As it turned out, though, it was sorely needed to even the odds.

See, my Dark Heresy GM is fond of throwing large numbers of enemies at us. Fights against 10-20 enemies were the norm, with one fight being against no fewer than 50(!) cultists backed up by vehicle support. If it weren't that missile launcher, I think the lot of us would have been dead several times over.

Anyway, for all of its mighty firepower, that missile launcher was heavy. I frequently had to decide whether to bring that along or whether to bring a heavy thermal lance (not the Rogue Trader precision melta weapon, mind you. I'm speaking of the cutting tool). What's more, due to its massive blast radius, use of it anywhere but an outdoor setting was out of the question. Finally, when considering all of the other specialized gear I had to carry, I couldn't bring much ammo with me (typically four shots at most). All in all, while useful, it wasn't a "use everyday" weapon.

-Kirov

Not my character, but still a good story. We're playing a homebrew adventure that takes us to the underhive of Scintilla chasing gladstone dealers, and we decide we need to storm a gang dealer's drug den. We knew he was a big fish in this particular pond, but we didn't realize we were dealing with a whale shark rather than a tuna. We sneak through the ganger perimeter and shoot the two door guards, and all hell breaks loose. I'm playing an arbitrator who can not breach a door (consecutive 80+s on a Very Easy breaching roll), and the gang muscle keeping watch around the area comes running. My wife's playing a Guardsman that took Heavy Weapon SP and brought a heavy weapon to the party. The GM had described the area as a building with about a hundred yards of clear space as a courtyard (primarily to keep us from sneaking up on the guards, I bet). So we get in the door, she tips over a table, braces the stubber on her makeshift barricade, and tells us to go get the bastard, and starts alternating between suppressing fire one turn and FA on anybody she can see the next. By the time we cleared the building, grabbed the gang lord, and got back, she'd killed all two dozen of them single-handedly (rolling a couple of 01s) and was just chilling, waiting on us. What was supposed to have been a frantic firefight with us pincered from both sides turned into, well, not a cakewalk, but nowhere near as problematic as it should have been, given that we were punching well above our weight (half a dozen 2nd rank characters v. a well established, connected, pretty smart hive gang).

Hi Bogi, Hi Kirov, Hi Tyraxus

@Bogi
Strange thing you mention. The reason behind "i get pinned by a weapon" normally is (or should be) the fact that "this weapon can kill me right off if I do not keep my head down". Have to check the rules on that. Thanks for pointing me the direction.

@Kirov
Thanks for the input. I already thought about more adventures with "open ground".Somehow, one is was to stuck in his dungeon-days. As you say it, I remember a shoutout at one abandoned base mentioned in a certain module....

@Tyraxus
Thanks for sharing this. Somehow this "go in quickly, I gonna keep them busy" never came to me. Although it is a mainstable of movies. Thanks!

I am a GM and not a player, but I will add my 2 Thrones anyway.

--- BARON HOPES SPOILER ---

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After more than 3 years of game time we recently had our first incident of heavy weapon use by a PC.
After the PCs were able to kill the major villain and halt the tide of zombies in Baron Hopes, it took only a few hours for the Royal Scourges (i.e. the PDF/enforcer of Sepheris Secundus) to arrive in a Chimera and a military truck; they were furthermore supported by a rival acolyte group (the Soldevan group from another adventure). When the shootout ensued, the Assassin PC used a Disposable Missile Launcher (the last remaining functional one he took from a Mutant Terrorist that blew of the tracks of the Arbites Rhino with it above/near the OP-centre) without the respective talent in a feeble attempt to destroy the Chimera. Despite the -20 for not having the talent he hit the Chimera’s front armour, but was not able to do any critical damage.

In most of the operations my PCs are involved, Heavy Weapons would simply be a hindrance. Even many Basic Weapons are hard to conceal and so the PCs are only armed with Pistol Weapons most of the time. If they expect serious trouble a few Basic Weapons and grenades are taken up as well though. In the near future we will start the Dead Stars scenario and as it is clearly described as a combat scenario without the need to keep a low profile, I assume the PCs will upgrade their equipment a lot then...

Gregorius21778 said:

Well it will kill you right off if it hits you, but it probably won't hit you. They're not precision weapons (esp. if you use the autofire rules from Black Crusade, as I am doing). You're not going to bull's-eye a single target. Suppressive fire is really what these babies are for. They lay it down over a huge range and for a long time, and during that time the enemy (that is, ALL THE ENEMIES in your zone of fire) is effectively useless. Suppressive fire is brutal. Overwatch is nifty too.

Isn't this pretty much how things work in real life? Machine guns are used to keep the enemy pinned so artillery or rocket launchers and so forth can be called in. (Not being a military person I really don't know.)

Heavy weapons are awkward, heavy and incredibly obvious wargear. If someone has brought a heavy weapon outside a warzone, it'll stand out a mile. That said, if you need to keep enemy heads down (or rolling) and have the strength/talents to use it, fire away!

Hi Luthor,

thanks for the scene. As long as a "this happend in your game!" is involved, GM-posts are very welcome. I just put up the "disclaimer" to disencourage any "well, I imagine..." posts. I wanted a "hands on" approach


You raised a good point: some (not all!) of the heavy weapons are "anti vehicle".. and as it boils down to that, the fact that a person is not skilled in its use (-20) might be more then cancelled by the size modifer (most likely +20 or +30 as long as we are not talking about bike-like vehicles).

@all you guys
Thanks to you. I start to get a better "feel" for this. Feel free to keep them coming, so!

One of the players in my Rogue Trader game has recently started packing a heavy weapon: Good quality heavy bolter with suspensors, motion tracker, backpack ammo supply, and inferno bolts. Since he's a shooty arch-militant, he usually puts most of the bolts into whatever he's aiming at.

Of course, the party is in the depths of the Expanse, and has been encountering Rak'Gol in significant numbers. They've had four serious firefights with Rak'Gol to date, usually with the PC's and a few guards getting pounced by 10+ Rak'Gol, and that heavy bolter has proven quite handy. Mind you, that arch-militant usually doesn't carry the heavy bolter when the ship is back in port. He has a plethora of other, more discreet weapons for more "civilized" locales. The bottom line is heavy weapons are military hardware, and should be treated accordingly. They're great if you're going into a war zone, but stick out like a sore thumb anywhere else.

Cheers,

- V.