Just an observation. I got my copy of Tempest rising last night and it looks great. It manages to use Tau, tyrannids, and chaos in one massive adventure. However, I noticed that it uses the old rules for weapons. I was under the impression that the weapon stats in the errata were the "new way" and were made official in Black Crusade. However, it seems in the NPC section that they used the old rules for weapons (overpowered bolters, non-leathal Tau weapons).

Not that I mind, Tau weapons seemed rather powerful. I am guessing the designers knew that the players were going to fight lots of Tau and decided to show some mercy to the players.

I think the new weapon rules are the "new way" for Black Crusade onward. In Deathwatch, they remain optional errata, so the official publications will continue to use the original weapon stats.

Gaire said:

Sadly some freelancers use the Optional Weapon Stats as a base for PC's weapons in new supplements. I don't want to start the whole debate whether someone prefers the old or the optional stats again, I only want to ask the question why it's not possible to stick to one variant in official publications.

Sometimes I get the impression that the official FFG way are the old rules, but some freelancers manage to sneak their own prefered stats into new products.

I know someone will say :"Nooo, FFG doublechecks everything when they get the freelance material!", but when I'm looking at the proofreading qualities of FFG it's more than possible that those details are simply overlooked and some people exploit this to make DW their own game.

But of course I'm only paranoid and made up this "conspiracy", so the only other explanation is that the people at FFG don't know what they are doing and aren't able to produce quality products anymore.

Which version did you prefer?

Hanlon's Razor. Somebody probably goofed in proofreading.

I'd rather they switched completely to new weapon charts. Then again, I'm not much bothered, because I run whatever I can using BC rules anyway.

Same issue is in Mark of the Xenos.

Why is it so scary to call it "errata" instead of "optional errata?" Obviously any changes to the mechanics of the game are optional table-to-table in the end anyway.

For that matter, sticking to some of the more awful DH rules should be out. Just like making Grey Knights use the truly horrible DH psychic rules. Ugh.

Different styles and ranges old and latest weapons makes gaming experience more entertaining and enjoyable. It look really incredible and marvelous.

Kshatriya said:

Seems to be the biggest weakness of the publishing model FFG adopted with 40k. Each year they improve the basic rules, but same changes are only introduced erratically, if at all, into previous lines.

On that note, the "optional" weapon stats from DW errata are already dated in places, compared to BC.

Morangias said:

I haven't noticed that, but then again I haven't played Black Crusade yet. Care to elaborate?

Gaire said:

Most notably, Astartes shotgun is d10+9 in the errata, but only d10+6 in BC.

Which didn't stop someone from introducing a d10+9 shotgun for human-sized users in Book of Judgement..

Also, melta weapons in BC have the new Melta special rule, which doubles their penetration at short range.

This is all without taking into account all the changes weapon special rules got - Overheats is now a hell of a drawback, to the point where you think twice before picking up a Plasma Weapon, unless you can afford best craftsmanship. Volatile is gone, because BC's equivalent of Righteous Fury is for everyone, not just people with Fate Points. So on, so forth - almost every special quality got at least slightly adjusted.

Different styles and ranges old and latest weapons makes gaming experience more entertaining and enjoyable. It look really incredible and marvelous.

First of all, your sentence is completely and unforgiably unparseable.

Second, mixing old and new stats is a terrible idea, because there's literally no logical baseline for comparison if you mix and match.

Morangias said:

True, I house-ruled most of the stuff that didn't fit. Volatile I gave a straight 1d10 damage to compensate for lacking a need to confirm RF, for example.

Storm is still terrible, of course.

Gaire said:

BC also made Toxic and Concussive less absurdly overpowered.