AluminiumWolf said:

Certainly, there are Guardsmen who get cool stuff, but they are one in a million, quite literally. Many of those are high-ranking leader units, or even leaders of their own worlds pdf and Guards, such as the aforementioned Al'Rahem, who is among the highest of his people, or Mogul Kamir, who is the greatest cavalry warrior, and has a mech-steed to keep up with him. A group of guys are a bit less likely to, and then you have one or two who don't feel like they are on the same page, whether ahead or behind. The best of the best of the Guard, by many accounts, the Cadian Shock Troops, stick to regular lasguns, regular bayonets, regular flak armor, and so on, and they are among the best sourced out regiments, so important is their task.

While I can't argue the Storm Troopers (it's going to take some getting used to, when I think of Storm Troopers as a Rank 9 Ascended occupation, and they are now going to rewrite them as starting jobs) can field some cool options, getting Veteran status, or being a Storm Trooper, and I don't think you move into that, but start there, will be easy. I also don't know if they'll make Tech-Priests courteous and approachable enough to get them to "modify" weapons, so that they seem cooler than bottom-rung lasguns.

If it follows anything like Dark Heresy, no characters will be able to get the really good guns (Plasma anything, Lascannons, etc.) for a decent stretch; I sort of hope it is more like Deathwatch, since I don't know BC well enough to want that to be the base. While the Ripper Pistol is one of my favorite guns, and one I was thrilled to see in Hostile Acquisitions, I HIGHLY doubt any Guardsman character, other than Marbo, himself, will ever be able to get one.

My biggest problem is, of course, a love of the shiny. I want my characters to have the best available stuff, like plasma pistols, refractor fields, power swords, lascannons, etc. and I know that Space Marines, Inquisitors, and Lord Captains can often acquire any of these easily, through their various means, but my own limited scope on the Guardsmen shows a group that doesn't often get cool toys. Vets, Officers, and Sts can have carapace, but no one else. Many of the big guns, like the lascannon, require two people to operate, and aren't so portable. Only the most important guys, like Primaris Psykers, Lord Commissars, and the highest ranking Officers get field generators, and only Commissars seem to have ready access to vaunted bolt weapons, other than the aforementioned heavy b, which requires a shooter and a feeder (again, two guys), and a setup apparatus. Through all of this, it just seems likely that many characters will spend much time wearing stuff that, in any other game FFG runs, is inferior to the starting gear of anyone else, which means my dream of being Colonel Heinrich Zimmerman, kitted out in carapace, fine clothes, a plasma pistol, power sword, refractor, and prosthetic vision apparatus is highly unlikely, both from a lack of survivability likelyhood, and from characters possibly not getting much kudos for doing stuff, being Guardsmen.

Anyway, I will just keep hoping that the game DOES turn out to be really great, and that all of my whining turns out to just be tension from ignorance, both my own and that caused by FFG's silence. I already have a fair number of ideas on some stuff I could do, if I can get my friends to want to play it. My only real hurdle is the story, since forced religion makes them want to play atheist, and the Imperium doesn't stand for that. I have a number of NPCs I can stat out, a world to use, and everything. Let's hope that the book hits before we all die of boredom waiting on it.

Um; Looking at the IG 4th edition codex (The most recent) a standard IG (not veteran or elite) Infantryman could potentially have any of the following gear:

Flamer

Grenade Launcher

Sniper rifle (Long-Las to us)

Meltagun

Plasma gun

Vox caster

Mortar

Autocannon

Heavy Bolter

Missile Launcher

Lascannon.

Additionally the Sergeant can Potentially come with a Bolt pistol and Melta bombs!

Nothing there shiny enough for you?

Don't forget chainswords, power swords, power fists, targeters, apparently advanced medicae kits, thrown demolitions (make sure you have a Fate point or two standing by! One for re-roll, one for burning in case the first doesn't work…). All from command and other specialty squads. And then there are the vehicles. A lot of Dark Heresy characters would kill (and often have to) for this sort of kit.

Veteran friend of mine opined that your kit was 'whatever you could get your hands on and whatever you command would allow.'

venkelos said:

Where do people get this perception that the guard are mostly a mediocore conscript army? Even your average joe guardsman is selected from among the most elite warriors of his planet, and while he isn't as lavishly equipped as a space marine, his equipment is more than enough to complete his task. Eldar/CSM/necrons are not common adversaries in 40k, and are often far outnumbered by minor rebel/Xeno empires and pirates. The Guard will fight the latter three far more often than the others, and in comparison, the Guard have superior training, equipment, and willpower. And by no means is the Guardsman forgotten or unremembered- Being a Guardsman is frequently seen as a prestigious and honorable position in Imperial society, and members of a world's local military will frequently compete for selection.

Lot of the supplementary stuff like the Imperial Armour books will have pictures of the IG along with an equipment section detailing what they're carrying, a fair bit have non-standard issue like an extra knife in a boot, a powersword, stub pistol in a shoulder holster, cavalry boots and so on. In most cases as long as the item you've liberated off the last careless owner doesn't have '4Kaos!' and 8 pointed stars all over it or think you'll get away with carrying a gauss flayer, they don't seem to give too much of a ****.

Probably just means an extra form to fill out with the Dept Munitorium and your CO if you're expecting it to be fed with ammo, or BYO bullets. I can think of several adventures if the characters aren't too scrupulous by essentially running around sourcing the extra munitions, better quality food or crate of good quality guns for their section. Lot of times it could come down to swapping the supply bloke that nice shiny item you nicked off some dead guy for something better issue, doing a deal with the local civies or outright theft. During WWII my grandfather managed to liberate a Japanese officers sword, which wasn't exactly 'standard issue' and probably a couple of hundred years old, he sold it and the proceeds essentially paid for the marrige to my grandmother after the war.

I can even see something of a cool situation where a guardsman has liberated a Gauss Flayer/Shuriken Catapult/Splinter Cannon/UBER DEATH RAY and a few clips of ammo from the dead… or even a unit has liberated a group of those. but is VERY careful about using them. Always worried about if it is the right time.

"Sir, the Chaos Cultists are coming… They outnumber us 3-1."

"So be it, set lasguns to full auto."

"But sir, the alien weapons would slaughter…"

"DON'T QUESTION ME CORPORAL!"

"Yes Sir!"

OR

"Sir, we've routed the cultists, now… By the EMPEROR! Traitor ASTARTES!"

"OH MY EMPEROR! SERGEANT! BREAK OUT THE FRAKING ALIEN WEAPONS!!!! IT'S OUR ONLY HOPE!"

And lo and behold… choosing the right time leads to an improbable victory.

Dulahan said:

Yes, I certainly see how such a scenario could happen, and be a great deal of fun, if the GM gave a blessing, and no one in the group said "profane xenos garbage! We should destroy it. The Uplifting Primer specifically says that Eldar technology is inferior to ours, as well as cursed.", or a tech-priest in the team might say their equivalent. My only problem with your setup is that I don't believe Necron tech can be used by anyone else; they are the power source. If they could capture some Eldar weapons, though, or such, it could be a nice back up for doomsday.

On a similar note, I have considered having a group/battle group (bigger, with the NPC drag alongs) finding and capturing a Tau base. After the Tech-Priest clears the stuff, I could imagine the soldiers putting the rail rifles, stealth suits, and maybe even a Broadside, or Crisis Suit to awesome use. I'm not sure how much of it they could get away with, since the Tau might be USING the same stuff in their battle, but I really do like it; I long for the day when Mankind begins to reacquire "safe", high-end technology. A senior Officer riding around in Command Suit, having an unparalleled view of the field, safely behind a shield, raining death down upon the enemy with fusion blasters, or whatever, could be very inspiring. While I don't really want the Imperium and Tau to team up, having them get some Tau tech could b great.

You're probably right on the Necron thing.

But even ignoring Xenos stuff, the same thing could happen with a squirreled away stash of Plasma weapons.

Or on a smaller scale with one trooper who has some sort of really good weapon stashed away and helps save the day with it.

"We need to clear that ridge.."

"Sir! Our lasguns and grenades can barely scratch those things!"

"Um, Sir! I think it's time to use that funny grenade I have…"

*And lo did Private Pearsons pull the pin and count to 3, not 4, definitely not 5, and only 2 on the way to 3 before he threw it to let the foul Xenos tech destroy the equally foul Xenos beasts on the ridge… Commissar Bob was not too happy with the Xenos Tech useage, and Pearsons got assigned extra shifts praying and peeling potatoes to purify his soul.*

Dulahan said:

Monty Python for the win

Dulahan said:

It's nice to see Xenos, who being naughty in His eyes, did snuff it, at the hands of xenos gear. It reminds me of a game of Stargate SG-1 I played, where one of our characters, Dr. Prescott (a veritable Daniel Jackson when it comes to tech and tinkering), saved the day by rigging up, and I kid you not, a makeshift nuke out of naquadah generators, and some other Gao'uld tech there, and then leaving through the gate. When we returned to Earth, and got debriefed, Prescott was actually arrested for committing a war crime, and held in Area 51, until such time as he was tentatively cleared for supervised duty again. We have forever referred to it and later things as "Prescott's Presents".

I still wonder if a group of Guardsmen could capture a Tau base, and make use of their various gear. It would be so awesome, if they could figure out how to use it, and have access to such assets as the Tau regularly make use of, especially in conjunction with what they already have.

No kidding! Have you seen the RPG stats for the Tau rank-and-file guns? Egad! They're almost the equivalent of heavy bolters, without the need for bracing! (2d10+5 E damage, I believe.)

Hey, really liking this thread.

Got to say though, I sort of like the idea of using only subtle variations of basic gear. maybe allowing for modifications and different versions that lead to each player making his/her gun unique but basicly no better then the next guys.

The idea of scenerio specific equipment is kind of interesting as well, create sort of a dogpile on the dead Tau at the start of every mission then having to give up most of the real good stuff at the end, maybe making a little game of concealing a few of your favorite things to keep for the long haul though.

All in all I hope most of the equipment is failrly mediocre, with the higher end stuff being sort of on par with like starter level rogue trader stuff, because I think only war and rogue trader could probably work the best out of all the 40k rpgs to string together.

In summary.

1) Obviously compared to DW (and even RT) starting characters are going to have terrible gear, no-ones expecting them to be nailing Hive Tyrants right out of the gate. But it's going to be on a par with DH starting character, probably better than a lot them.

2) Even the high best gear is not going to compare to the best DW stuff. Which is fine, the difference between starting gear and end gear is whats important and that's going to be a massive gulf for OW characters in DW there's only a few things that are actually better in all respects.

3) When it comes down to it the top level stuff RT and DW characters will be green with the firepower you get on your Leman Russ Executioner or a Bane Blade.

4) Yes most IG are destined to die horribly early in there careers. That's true of nearly every RPG characters, from DH Acolytes to Cthulu Investigators. Even most SM's are going to buy it before they get to be Captains. You don't play RPG's to blindly accept the odds, you play it to be beat the odds. That's what makes a good story. Going from a veteran SM to MORE veteran Space Marine is nice, going from a green conscript to Hero of the Imperium is going to be epic.

5) The IG doesn't consider itself to be weak, fragile and ultimately expendable. An IG regiment is a super-organism, the deaths of Individual soldiers in it's pursuit of glory make no difference.

I think that Only war and DH would work best togeather, both run of the mill everyday joes.

To be honest, if I'm playing a Guardsman I kinda want to be rocking the lasgun/flack armour combo.

It'd be sort of nice if that was viable, either by ensuring that the adventures are full of bad guys who can be dealt with with a lasgun or by having feats and whatnot that keeps it useful.

Face Eater said:

I'm relatively certain that when it comes to a barrel-measuring contest, even the tiniest ship-based macrocannon beats tank guns hands down, not to mention torpedoes or a Nova-cannon…

A tank commander may feel like the big man while sitting in his seat, but only a starship captain (and higher) knows what wielding Power feels like.

H2SO4 said:

HERESY! You forget the Emperor! (lol)

…and Titan Princeps!

On a ground based scale of 'oh my f**king god emperah, its coming right for us' I think the Titan probably still has trumps on making a fairly huge impact on the battlefield. Also factoring in their comparative scarcity and difficulty of deployment you can fairly much be assured that whatever theatre you're in and titans turns up, has gone to complete **** and all bets are off on anyone surviving very long.

Just never forget that a tank company can slay even the largest titan. Oh, well, an Imperitor maybe not, but anything smaller is in for a world of hurt.

H2SO4 said:

Well, technically a Banesword HAS a macro cannon. But point taken, shouldn't call a Rogue Trader on that, but within theater that's still unprecedented firepower and not likely to be beaten until you can play a Titan precept, which is probably a bit limited comparatively.

If I can drift back on to the topic of using archeotech/xenos gear. I was loooking through the imperial gaurd section on GW today, spotted commisar yaric and remember how he uses a salvaged orc power claw. Given that he's the guy who would shoot you for doing something wrong and is in the public eye enough to be given real trouble for breaking from standard kit, even with the greater leeway given to a guy like him, I think it can be assumed that a guardsman in an elite squad, like the one you should qualify by the higher levels of OW, should be able to make use of a few war trophies that they've picked up along the way without catching too much flak for it.

Hordshyrd has a point, Yarrick did take the orc power claw

then again he is a war hero, and who exactly can argue with him -Creed?

i think the imperials should do less time worrying about breaking regs and more time killing the xenos scum!

BloodAngels4thewin said:

And that right there is he difference between a Radical and a Puritan in Ordo Xenos.

Dulahan said:

Yeah, this is a bit where my fear/whining comes from; the Imperium, in fiction, views their tech as somewhere between good enough for government work and superior to that of all of their enemies. The IG Uplifting Primer is chalk a block full of lies and errors, regarding just how screwed Humans, and their gear, are when compared to Nids, Eldar, Tau, and even Orks. Between "Kill the Alien" and the resident Tech-Priests either saying "no, you can't keep that; I have to keep it, to ensure that it is safe, or to begin reverse-engineering it for the greatness of the Omnisssiah!", or proclaiming it as tainted, by virtue of someone else made it, and needing to destroy it (Puritan OX inq plan), I don't see Player Characters getting to keep so many of the alien goodies. Sure, they COULD, if various agencies in their party (Officer, Commissariat, Adeptus Mechanicus, and maybe a surprise Inquisitor) allow it, but if those are NPC roles, there's a good chance they will say no, and either take it from you, or break it on the spot, and then wonder if its evil aura has tainted you, too.

If I was running it, I'd probably be a bit lax, just to have some fun, but I don't know about others, and a game of war turned looting doesn't seem as much fun to me.

I'm enough of an Imperial loyalist that anyone using tainted and hertical technology will find themselves betrayed by its capricious and alien Machine Spirits.

So the fancy pulse rifle will emit a loud beeping noise when you are trying to sneak up on someone, or go in to a cooling purge cycle for ten minutes just as the ork horde reaches the parapet.

Or just, y'know, attract demons.

The goal is to reinforce the idea that you can't trust technology, and to get people really thinking like an Imperial - small minded and superstitious!