Hey, was just looking through the book and noticed that one of the few items heretics in terminator armour could equip was a thunder hammer.

Unfortunately there is no set of rules for the hammer in the book. I assume you'd just use the DW errata'd version for its stat line, but how easy is the hammer to obtain? Can you even obtain it by any other method than prying it from the dead hands of a foolish loyalist marine?

Nimas said:

Most plausible way, definitely.

Nimas said:

Well, while I imagine a sufficiently skilled Heretek provided with the right technical information could assemble one if given the right incentives, I imagine that most of the time, the easiest ways to get a Thunder Hammer would be to pry it from the cold dead hands of a loyalist Space Marine, or to obtain it from someone else who has (either by prying it from their dead hands, or by trading with them, intimidating them into giving it to you in tribute, or stealing it).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yeah it's easiest thing in the world to kill terminator with storm shield and thunder hammer

I would give it near unique avaliblity, and concusive 1 or 2

Okies, mainly wanted to know for another character in our group who's going more the all out attack->hammer blow route. Basically you make concussive as stupidly hard to resist as possible

Concusive 4 ...

Brillant!

coolzyg said:

That's why you aim for the guys in power armour wielding Thunder Hammers two-handed... of course, they tend to be veteran heroes of the Astartes, and thus aren't particularly easy to kill either.

Nobody said that it'd be easy to get a Thunder Hammer... but I personally maintain that the best way to get good equipment for Chaos Marine characters is to take it from loyal Space Marines - replace that old breastplate with a new one from one of those Mark VII suits (once you've defaced the Aquila and had a slave patch those shell craters, of course), steal a few cases of bolter shells... if you think big enough and get lucky enough, you might even be able to steal vehicles, ships or even some geneseed (sell it to the highest bidder, use it in blasphemous rites, eat it to gain knowledge, or employ some insane heretek or Dark Eldar Haemonculus to create new Chaos Marines for your warband... regardless, it's a good way to get Infamy if people find out that you were able to take the precious genetic legacy of an Astartes Chapter in a raid)

Nimas said:

Caution, the post errata Thunder Hammer has the reputation of being over-powered.

Alex

I believe winning from a fight with a terminator with a Thunder Hammer / Storm Shield config would be difficult. Instead, why not resort to subterfuge?

It is written by Nick Kyme in the Salamanders trilogy that each prized suit of termie armour comes with a homing beacon. That way, the chapter is able to retrieve the armour should the marine be killed in action.

My idea is to infiltrate the chapter armoury or plant a spy into the armoury of said loyalist chapter. Sabotage a suit of armour's interface beacon so that when the termies try to teleport out of the battlefield, the one that has been compromised would teleport instead to a location of your choice. Set up a suspension field. Said big fish will be immobilised when he emerges on your ship. With luck, you can obtain the terminator armour, storm shield and weapons.

Or you could have automated defenses that is programmed to attack all hostiles. The moment the loyalist emerges, pour all firepower on him.

Deepstriker said:

That sounds about a hundred times more risky. I'd take my chances fighting the guy.

Hmm... in situations where you would fight the guy in the terminator armour, there's a lot of ground work to be done as well.

You need to be physcially at/ create a scenario to which warrants the use of said terminator armour. Situations which are catastrophic on galactic proportions/ world tearing/ space void battle/ chapter home world destroying.

Then again such said user won't be fighting alone. You probably face more than a squad. I believe it is safer to resort to subterfuge and rely on contacts than to face such a warrior in battle. All for said Thunder Hammer.

Why not just procure then specs from the mechanicus and then make your own? Probably less life threatening although to get your hands on the technology and materials... is very difficult.

If anyone is still wondering why Chaos has no Thunder Hammers, I think I have just remembered what's the reason. I don't remember where did I read it, maybe in a Codex, or probably Lexicanum or a Forge World supplement, so the reliability of this answer suffers a -1

Thunder Hammers and Storm shields are not used by Chaos because.... their machine spirits are so pure that they can not be corrupted.

It also sounds stupid to me: you can corrupt a Baneblade, a Titan, a Sacred Relic! but not a Hammer? But that's the fluff justification.

So, if you ask a Corrupted Techpriest to make a Thunder hammer for you, and taking into account that going out of the blueprint in warhammer 40000 has a high probability of failing, he will either create a non-functional Thunder Hammer, a Puritanian Thunder Hammer or a Daemon possesed Hammer.

Without modifying the fluff, thats what will happen.

But the first rule of GMing is "if I say that dwarfs fly, you can only ask how high".

And, of course, the second one is "You shall not talk about the Fight Club"

@Deepstriker

I think I lost you at "infiltrate the chapter armoury".

CruelGM said:

Well... not really.

In the wargame, the Chaos Space Marines armoury is pretty much defined by wargear available during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy - hence the absence of Storm Bolters, Razorbacks, etc. Thunder hammers, it seems, are also an element of this. However, during 2nd edition 40k, when Codex: Chaos was released in 1996, it presented a number of weapon options for Chaos Dreadnoughts, including the Power Scourge and the Thunder Hammer. The Power Scourge was a massive articulated collection of talons (pictured below) that was excellent at sweeping through multiple enemies. The Thunder Hammer on a Chaos Dreadnought was meant to represent an unrefined version of that technology, too bulky and cumbersome even for warriors in Terminator Armour to wield (back in 2nd edition, you could only use a Thunder Hammer in Terminator Armour - anything lighter, and the concussive force of the weapon's impact would knock the wielder down).

Arguably, ancient (Heresy veteran) Chaos forces still have a few of those archaic Dreadnought Thunder Hammers around. Newer Thunder Hammers wielded by Chaos characters could easily have come from Space Marines who have turned traitor more recently, though they'd be comparatively rare (they're only entrusted to veterans, it's logical that a veteran whose loyalty and purity has been tested countless times would be far less likely to turn than a younger, less experienced Marine).

It seems the most efficient method for doing this would be to pull a Marines Errant style assault.

Rig things to the chapter has most of it's marines somewhere out of the way, like a diversionary invasion. Or do what Huron Blackheart pulled off, and keep them busy pirate hunting.

Next attack their fortress monastery. This will be really hard. Some really sneaky people (Huron had a Night Lords kill team do this) infiltrate and destroy defence lasers and counter-teleport fields.

Teleport in a terminator strike team, to finish off the rest of the defence lasers and whatnot. Bring in more troops, and attack several important locations in the Monastery. Like the armory, apothicarium, and Reclusiam. Take whatever they can't stop you from taking. gene-seed to make new traitor marines, priceless relics, and large stores of wargear.

Abscond with the above, and most of all do it quickly, more Imperial forces will be moving to really quickly.

Now, not only does the warband have a new surplus of wargear, and the means to make warriors to use it. They have struck a massive blow against the hated Imperium.

This would be a pretty large compact though.

Hi Cifer,

Maybe I my previous post was not written clearly enough, my apologies for that. What I meant was that a TH/SS has to teleport with a user in a Termie armour usually. So if one could infiltrate the armoury and sabotage the teleportation beacon of the suit. Slave the teleporter to a remote device which can control remotely the destination of teleportation. No need to pull off a heist to steal from the armoury.

As terminators usually are too large and cumbersome for walking long distances, they usually arrive on the battlefield by teleporting. Thus when a veteran suits up in the compromised suit, instead of arriving at his destination, the suit will teleport to wherever the player wishes the suit to arrive at.

Then the lone terminator would probably face an ambush with overwhelming firepower. So after killing said veteran, the player could obtain the TH/SS and a suit of terminator armour. Probably if he is lucky, the geneseed material of a SM veteran to be implanted into another new CSM.

SomVone said:

Your diversion would probably need to be of a catastrophical proportion in order to lure most of the chapter away for you to raid the armoury. It seems likely that they may have spare weapons. If it seems like just an ordinary threat, a company or two would be sent at most.

Possibly something along the scale of a daemon invasion like M'Kar the thrice borne and the Iron Warriors invading the Ultramar sector. It may prove tough for the players to scheme and execute a diversion of this magnitude. to draw away most of the forces.

Alot of manpower thrown in just to obtain... a thunder hammer. Seems just sneaking in to sabotage a terminator armour to teleport where you want may seem to be less hassle and groundwork.

Well since you're sneaking into the armoury already, why not just steal a thudnerhammer and stormsheild and then teleport out? No need to go the extra step of also stealing the veteran unless you're Alpha Legion or a follower of Tzeentch.

Larkin said:

Might as well, and watch the grim satisfaction of killing said veteran. An extra sacrifice to the ruinous powers of Chaos.

Deepstriker said:

The diversion would be hard. But making a pact with some Greater daemon (likely Khorne aligned as not) could help. Attack a planet and cause enough death (say 10K souls) to bring the daemonhammer down. Make the planet something important to the chapter, like a recruiting world.

You don't even need large parts of the chapter away for very long, and the assault should be over with in a day or two. Including getting your ships close.

The reward here isn't the Thunder hammer, though it's nice. After all, and ancient Imperial relic like the TH might a have a good legacy of slaughter.

The real reward is the gene-seed supplies for a few hundred very loyal CSM under the PC's command. Not to mention the large prestige which comes with laying an Astartes chapter low.

Though I admit, this isn't really about the thunder hammer anymore.