More of an observation than a serious discussion topic, but I've realized that given it's new statline and general alterations in the game's combat engine, it's suddenly making a lot of sense that the IG would be equipped with lasguns rather than anything else.

Before (as in, in previous 40k roleplaying games), it only made sense from logistics' point of view - lasguns are cheap, reliable, and you don't have to keep megatons of ammo in stock to maintain battle-readiness. But dear God, were they useless from the perspective of the poor guardsman expected to fight Orks with it. Less damage than autogun, no sweet full-auto, and way, way worse special ammo types. It sufficed to shoot down some underhive gangers or a human riot, but against anything more ambitious, they were woefully inadequate.

Not so much in Black Crusade. First, one of their biggest weaknesses in previous games - namely, lack of full auto - is suddenly a boon for those poorly trained guardsmen, as under new rules, they're unlikely to hit the broad side of a barn while shooting on autofire. Semi-auto setting still lets them lay down suppressive fire when needed, and they still get a sporting chance of scoring this extra hit occasionally. Second, new firing modes give lasguns much greater flexibility - shoot in normal mode when it suffices (and enjoy vastly greater ammo capacity than any autogun), then switch to more powerful modes when necessary - in a pinch, you can pack quite a heavy punch. New Hot Shot Charges are also much better - it's still just one shot, but now it's a shot dealing more damage than a human-size bolter! And lastly, lasguns now deal the same base damage as autoguns. Being a guardsman isn't so bad after all... okay, I'm lying, it still sucks, but now you get at least a sporting chance against tougher enemies.

In case you're wondering, SP guns still seem to have their place in the game, thanks to the autofire setting (not good for Guardsmen doesn't mean not good at all in this case) and a wide selection of good ammo types. Any combat specialist running on a tight budget should appreciate them.

So... if someone wishes to add anything, feel free.

Death by flashlight has become a reality.

DJSunhammer said:

And there was much rejoicing.

Aww, there goes the old joke: "What do you call a las-gun with a red-dot sight? Twin-linked!"

Seriously tho, it is a marked improvement, making las the equal of SP in weapon choice. Heck, even the old compact las pistol is not a completely useless gun now!

Not sure if the new rules will benefit the IG all that much, as it seems that variable power settings are considered a bit naughty by the Ad-Mech. But then if you are a guardsman in the field, maybe you decide to see what that knob labled "Power Setting" on your gun actually does when you turn it up to max, even tho the enginseers that trained you in the use of your las-gun told you that knob must never be touched. Thus begins heresy.

While the rulebook makes it sound otherwise, the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifiting Primer explains both the existence and the use of variant power settings.

It is one of the best "new" things in the books, I'm most surely going to use it in my Imperial Guard Campaign

For someone not entirely knowledgeable about the changes made in the Black Crusade combat system, what are the highlights? Is it easy to port over to the other games? Can we maybe even expect it to, officially?

I've heard good things.

Fgdsfg said:

I´d say the attack actions.

A Standard Attack now gives +10 to BS or WS

A Semi-Auto Burst or Swift Attack gives +0

A Full-Auto Burst or Lightning Attack gives -10

In addition to that, all of them are half actions. So you have quite a bit of freedom to do stuff while attacking, half aim, feint, move, brace, etc...

EDIT: the old Multiple Attack got dumped btw. Swift Attack now works like a Semi-Auto Burst, Lightning Attack works like Full-Auto. WS Bonus determines how often you can possibly hit.

Righteous Fury (Zealous Hatred in BC) works different too. Instead of making another attack roll an applying more damage, you just roll 1d5 on the critical table (for whatever location you hit and damage type you use) and apply the effects. If your attack dealt damage that is. If it didn´t because everything got soaked up by TB+armour, it deals 1 point of damage instead.

And you can now replace one damage die with the DoS you had when hitting. So if you hit you hit with a lot of DoS you´re likely to do good damage aswell. I believe, unless I got it wrong, you can even trigger Zealous Hatred by having 10 DoS which is not that unlikely if one uses a sniper weapon.

Fgdsfg said:

Sry forgot about that.

Yes there is a segment in the RB dealing with porting DH, RT and DW into BC and vice versa. Though I haven´t really read through that tbh.

moepp said:

I think the segment you are talking about only deals with the general rules, such as character conversion or creation, not at all with the combat rules. I may be wrong, though. I've only skimmed through them.

Yes. I skim a lot, since I'm not actively playing.

Fgdsfg said:

Unhelpful as that sounds, yes and no at the same time. Changes in the combat engine can be implemented pretty much seamlessly, ditto with updated Talents. Skills are a bigger problem, you'd have to make numerous corrections to career ranks, deleting some skills, merging others and introducing new ones. This can lead to balancing problems. Then again, you can just ignore the changes to skills, it'll still be perfectly playable.

Morangias said:

I'd really encourage you to adopt Talent and Traits updates along with the combat engine - these things really go hand in hand.

Since when did autoguns do more base damage than a lasgun? They have always done a base of 1d10+3. You just basically traded Full-Auto and the flexibility of special ammo for a higher ammunition capacity and Reliable. Maybe not that worth it, at least if the GM is generous with ammo, but Autoguns never had higher damage than a lasgun.

Oh, I wouldn't go with some of the nerfed talents personall;y. Assassin's Strike, Sure Strike... and the other one that comes after that. Most of them are fine though.

borithan said:

Hm, it appears you're right. I've spent so much time toying with variant weapons from Inquisitor's Handbook that I totally forgot the base stats for an autogun.

Still, under the old rules, autoguns were vastly superior by virtue of full auto firing mode.

Morangias said:

I've done exactly this in my RT game and my players are enjoying it, as am I.

Like the new changes, the lasgun in the DH games I've run was the least-used weapon. By the time I got around to house ruling them into something very similar to the BC guns, the PC's where kind of past that level and had moved onto other things.