So I've been running for around a year or two a very successful DH game. Characters are around rank 5 or 6, and the game is heavily story/investigation driven (I wrote the pinned article on conspiracies in the gamemaster forum) but I throw in combat every couple sessions.

This past session I had, due to machinations and the PCs not playing it low-key, an HTR Arbitrator squad breach & engage the PCs, who decided that walking fully armed and armored into an influential neighborhood wasn't going to have repercussions. Firefight ensues. I will say that cyber mastiffs are effing SCARY in combat. Huge armor & toughness, crazy damage, the big downside is that they don't dodge very well. Anyway, the fight kind of spiraled out of control and while nobody died, the new-ish player who rolled an assassin expressed his... displeasure with how combat went. He managed to one-round headshot the tech priest handling the mastiffs, which actually made the fight doable instead of a slaughterhouse. This was due to the tech priest not wearing a helmet (an intentional decision on my part). After that though, he basically was unable to burn through the toughness and armor of the arbitrators (carapace 6 toughness 3) and only managed to do one or two points of damage after that for the rest of combat. While he wasn't "complaining" about this particular combat, he asked me if there were ways to make a gun-toting assassin more effective against armored opponents. Especially since we've got an IG with a heavy stubber who can usually burn through heavy soak on a full round burst, a psyker who gains a strength bonus of 12 when he pops claws, a cleric who found the eviscerator chain greatsword and bought the elite advance allowing him to handle it safer (and now is throwing like pen 5 attacks), and grenades/missiles on occasion.

I get it and agree, he and the tech priest are under-gunned at this point, and combat bogs down a lot when you're only plinking for a point or two here and there. Yes, he is a god against unarmored targets, but aside from leaving bad guys without extremity armor (arms, legs, head), we're trying to figure out how to step up his weapons.

At the moment he's going with guns, and is partial to dual pistols, but has expressed a willingness to go to a rifle if needed. Nobody has access to plasma or any of the really scary stuff, and all he needs is maybe an extra point or two of damage and some armor penetration to make him feel like he's at least contributing. The Tech Priest is in a similar situation, though he just discovered servitors so I think he's going to become a drone commander and I'm not quite so worried about him.

My problem is that I'm running a 3 ring circus of locations, conspiracies, NPCs, and tangential plots, and my mind is mush from that alone. I don't have time to pour through all my books and look for appropriate weapon/accessory combinations, so I was hoping to get some input from folks who have successfully deployed such weapons packages. Right now he tends to either stick with needler pistols out of the core book or a long las with a couple of attachments like a laser pointer. As I said, a couple more AP points and maybe a point or two more of damage and we'd be in an area where he doesn't have to roll max damage to inflict 3 wounds (which is significant, but it also means that 2/3 of *successful* attacks basically bounce off).

I have most of the rules books (I don't touch the adventures), including the handbook, the arbitrator book, the martyr book, and others (I'd have to check them all). Any help would benefit things for me immensely. I'm not looking for "broken", I'm looking for "on par with the rest of the party".

Thanks in advance!

I assume he took Mighty Shot at Rank 3?

Bolt Pistols are nice. Especially with a Fire Selector and maybe a Red-Dot Sight, having a weapon that can fire 24 shots with a +10 to BS and the tearing quality, is nothing to sneer at. If he can afford Needle weapons he can afford the ammo for a bolt weapon. Other than Bolt weapons he has little choice since plasma and melta are out.

No matter how skilled you are, throwing water at a wall will always yield predictable results.

If he wants to have the means to tear through extraordinarily armored targets, I'd suggest investing in armor-penetrating rounds for his SP sidearms.

If toughness is still an issue after the armor is done for, perhaps he'll want to scrape some cash together, and get a toxic mod for a clip or two of ammo. That should not only add to the quintessential assassin-feel, but also add alot of OOMPH to his attacks.

Nearyn said:

From what TheFlatline wrote, the assassin in question uses Needle Pistols which already are toxic and can't use AP ammo. He might look into getting a Westingkrup Precision Handcannon though, it has good stats and wouldn't be as expensive as a Bolt Pistol. Rogue Trader books have many solutions to your problems TheFlatline or you just might add new ammo types for needle weapons (like explosive needles or maybe AP ones).

Good ideas to start with.

Bolt pistols are not available right now. While they have decent funds, 10 or 15 thrones per shot is pretty severe. Besides, this is a long-term game, and opening up the high end weapon locker right now would leave something like 20 more sessions with nothing to work towards.

I guess I'll have to look for some AP rounds and a few other ideas. I don't know if he took mighty shot though, I'll need to ask him that. I doubt it though (IIRC his BS isn't high enough). But there's some options here I can run with. I'll take a peek over at Rogue Trader, which doesn't exactly excite me as an RPG, but I might be able to plumb for weapons. But it's nice to know some tweaking can help him out.

I also don't always intend for the PCs to go up against full armored badguys, it's just that when the baddies come knocking, they're loaded to bear and want to win, so they tend to ambush, wear full armor, and use as much tactics as I can think of. Those fights he's of limited use.

Arag said:

A derpa derp, that's what I get for responding to posts late in the evening

Oh well, needlers eh? That changes the situation quite a bit.

TheFlatline said:

That perspective I can wholeheartedly understand. An idea could be to have them try to get blackmarket contacts or attempt to get a squeeze on some munitorum official, so that they can access a more varied (if not more powerful) set of weapons and items. Tools promote creativity. Alternatively get a shoddy version of an item, so the merchant don't rob you blind.

TheFlatline said:

This should fit naturally with the whole assassin idea. An assassin is at his best when he is the one doing the hunting, after all. An idea to impress upon your players (though how/if you do it, is personal choice ), is the idea of running. If an enforcer shocksquad (or even worse, arbites) lob a few choke-gas grenades through the window and then bust through the door, then maybe, just maybe, you should make for the fireescape (or the sewer access).

In cases when the players simply chose to forfeit any situational awareness (4 men in suits and blue surgical-gloves walk into a bank), punishing them like you did is fine though The world should take shape according to the actions of the players and the reaction of their surroundings, after all

TheFlatline said:

My PCs are rank 5-6 as well and neither one of them is wielding plasma, melta or any kind of heavy weapons (a few Bolt weapons are around now though). Our groups Assassin is about the deadliest in combat (more deadly than the Eviscerator wielding Gurdsman and the Force Sword wielding Psyker). He is armed with two Fate Bringers, two Power Blades (for emergency situation like melee, though normally no one reaches his melee range anyway) and the Sniper Rifle featured in Into the Storm for RT (which is a little better than the Hunting Rifle from DH). The Sniper Rifle and the Fate Bringers have man-stopper ammo loaded most of the time. The assassin is able to make Called Shot without penalty due to Deadly Shot and Sharpshooter (or however the talents are called) and I allowed to combine it with his Dual Shot talent. The Dual Shot talent is what makes him that deadly even against armoured targets; this combined with Mighty Shot and Crack Shot is very often one hit instant kill. E.g. 1D10+3(+2 Mighty Shot) + 1D10+3(+2 Mighty Shot) = on average 21 Damage vs. AP6(x2 because of Dual Shot - 2x2 man-stpper)=8, TB3 Cyber Mastiff = 11 Damage after soak (if they have only 10 wounds (not sure), Crack Shot would lead to a -3 critical damage in the first round).

With the Sniper Rifle and the extra damage through Aim and Accurate, it is even worse...

Hey TheFlatline, I have found the perfect solution to your problem. I looked into Hostile Acquisitions, the newest book for RT, there on page 60 are Micro-Blast Needles (Needle Pistol/Rifle ammo that removes the toxic quality and adds a damage bonus and the tearing quality). Their only drawback is that they are extremely rare.

I wonder if you checked out the errata.

Basic weapons with Accurate are very nasty in the hands of a sniper. Not only do you get +20 instead of +10 when you aim. For every two degrees of succes you get 1d10 extra damage. To a maximum of +2D10 extra. Suddenly that hunter rifle does 3d10+3 damage and then we are not even talking about special ammo.

Armour penetration can be improved with man-stopper bullets (+3 Pen) in [DH Corebook], the [RT Corebook] has bleeder rounds (+3 damage to biologicals) and amputator shells (+2 damage).

What about Hellguns? They are more rare and expensive than standard lasguns, but they have Pen of 3-4 (7 in Ascension military versions). Since you can recharge the chargepacks (if you have a tech-priest nearby), the ammo costs should stay reasonably low.

My party's Assassin uses a sniper rifle and, with the extra damage from being Accurate (as detailed in the Errata) she 'one-shots' almost all 'grunt'-level adversaries (I use 'sudden death' Criticals for unnamed npcs), and can drop most 'big baddies' with a couple shots if she uses Manstoppers.

Man-stopper bullets are cheap as dirt. At about Rank 3, all PCs in my DH campaign switched over to them, never looked back, and never had the slightest problem with maintaining their ammo supply. Having a Cleric on the team sure helps a lot

Your Assassin should consider the Nomad hunting rifle for his sniping needs, and Orthlack autopistols for everything else. Needlers have a hard time punching through anything more resilient than a street thug, but a needle rifle is an acceptable alternative for sniping.

If you're allowing gear from other systems, consider the Ripper pistol from RT (Into the Storm, I believe). It makes heavy carapace armor look like wet tissue paper, deals good but not overwhelming damage, and is banned on many imperial worlds, giving it the sweet taste of illegality that should jive well with a gun-toting assassin. It also uses custom ammo with no listed cost (RT rules), so you can probably limit it's usefulness if you find it too good compared to the rest of the group.

Morangias said:

The Nomad is really hard to get and rather expensive. Another alternative would be the Widower from IH, which can also be featured as a Basic weapon (and thus get the Aim+Accurate bonus) and has a flat Pen 4 if I remember correctly. The Angelus Bolt carbine is worth a look as well (though not really that easier to get hold of than the Nomad).

Well, if your character oes the gunkata jig, he could also take two hack shotguns and load them up with solid slugs.
1d10+5, Pen 2, Tearing is nothing to laugh at.

Luthor Harkon said:

That's true. It's also totally worth it. Astartes scouts wish they had sniper rifles this good.

Luthor Harkon said:

Not bad, but given the cost and the requirement of getting a distinct Exotic Weapon Training to use it, I'd rather save up some more for the Nomad.

Luthor Harkon said:

Angelus is interesting, but it could use getting updated to be more in line with the standard Astartes Bolt weapons in terms of damage (d10 +9 pen 4, as used in DW errata and BC).

TheFlatline said:

I have a couple of options for said Assassin. Staying strictly within the Las group;

Khayer-Addin Duelling Las. Page 112 Inquistor's handbook

Sollex Pattern-VII “Steel Burner” Heavy Laspistol Page

Can anyone tell me where solid slugs are from? I know I've seen them, but can't remember where .

The ideal choice would be a Best quality requisitioned weapon from the ascension handbook so rare and costly you could barter for the lives of the whole party by simply offering it as compensation. Here's a more budget-oriented solution that will allow scaling into better gear later:

Long Las w/Red-Dot Sight, Hot-Shot Charge packs to be used when dealing with armored targets. With Hot-Shot: Pen 5, average damage rolls of 6.15 (+4 from gun/hot-shot).

Half-action aim+accurate weapon+short range(pretty much always)+red-dot sight+average BS(40) = a roll of 80 to hit, 60 to deal 16.3 damage, or 40 to deal 22.45. Average damage per shot of 14.27-Toughness.

Gun and ammo are both Scarce, making them as rare as a hunting rifle (aka easily attainable). The gun is also reliable with a huge clip when not using the hot-shot packs. Expensive ammo is the only downfall. Rapid reload increases RoF from 1 shot/2 turns to 2 shots/3 turns.

*Edit: corrected average damage*

The_Shaman said:

RT: Hostile Acquisitions pg.61

Availability: Common, lose scatter ,+1 Damage, +2 Pen.

Of course, the truly munchy among us would try to add "Fyceline-tipped rounds" (RT: Hostile Acquisitions pg.60) to the solid slugs for the +1 (Basic) / +3 (Heavy) Damage, and damage type X...

You shouldn't actually bother with plasma or melta, cos plasma is dangerous and can be used every other round, while melta's have pretty short ranges

and they are both expensieve to keep ammo on.

I would say that bolt weapons are the peak of my ranged weapons, and even then iffy, taking into account the income of my class.

you should consider flame weapons. If you turn the enemy on fire, no benefit of armour for them, and WP check or run around panicked.

H2SO4 said:

So you're basically telling me they never statted slugs in any DH product, and even in RT they were added only recently? Good grief. Anyway, I'm thinking of buffing plasma (to at least RT levels) and melta weaponry when the party gets to them. When you read about their effects - like in the Ciaphas Cain series - the idea that a meltagun direct hit MAY fail to but down an unaugmented human sounds absurd.

Only War sill has to come out and believe that it will introduce the RT weapons DH lacks into DH. Based on my observations of the last few books for DH.

The_Shaman said:

A direct hit is a max damage roll, which is 24 wounds in the case of a meltagun. It WILL put down an unaugmented human; there is no MAY. A direct hit is a high damage roll, not a low to-hit roll.

When did Dan Abnett become the benchmark anyway? That's just his personal take.

Dude, Dan Abnett has nothing to do with the Caiaphas Cain series, that's Sandy Mitchell . As for a direct hit - no, that's just regular damage. A maximum damage is a luck shot - and 2d10+4 generally means 15 wounds. Decent, sure, but nothing that great - a hardcore arbitrator will take it and still be left standing. That's the kind of gun that leaves anything but a Tyrannid MC dead.

Let me be frank: if you can take a meltagun and be standing, the system is not working well. That kind of firepower should be enough to put a veteran space marine out, but it can't get the job done against a regular (if elite) human. That means it's not working well.

The_Shaman said:

Seems so.
In DW they stattet them earlier but I thing there they are somewhat stronger.
If you use the errata weapon stats a astartes automatic combat shotgun with solid slugs does more damage than a boltgun.
It just has less range.