TCBC Freak said:

Huh. That's odd. It says in the weapon's description that it "blows apart on impact", but you're right. It doesn't actually say that it's a single use weapon.

Another point I'd like to raise: the anti-tank shell has a penetration of 12. Does that mean that a Vanquisher cannon using an anti-tank shell loses 4 penetration? Perhaps making the anti-tank shell a +X penetration round like the Manstopper round would work better. Also, a reduction or removal of an artillery weapon's Blast rating might make sense for the anti-tank shell.

Gaire said:

Vanquisher Cannons are not the same calibre as Battle Cannons and use their own special AT ammunition in anycase, which it's safe to assume is the base stat'd damage for the weapon.

Some AT rounds do in fact explode. HEAT [High Explosive Anti-Tank] uses a copper lined shape charge to pierce armour and has a dual purpose, it can be used to shoot armoured targets and it also has a conventional fragmentation casing. HESH/HEP [High Explosive Squash Head/High Explosive Plastic] is better used against structures as a secondary, but destroyed armour by transmitted force. That is, the round does not actually penetrate the target, but slams into the side of it, dislodging material from the other side if its point of impact. Inside a tank, that is the inside of the armour flying about as if someone had toss a fragmentation grenade in. So rather than punching a great big hole then exploding, this kills the crew and destroys electrics inside the tank. It's rather like how the WWI Germans dealt with tanks, you could get a very similar effect shooting machine guns at the tanks. It also has an HE charge. So it can, if it needs to, be used in an anti-personnel fashion. A third variety of Anti-Tank munition are Kinetic Energy Penetrators or Armour-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot (APFSDS). These are nice and simple. You are shooting a large dart of tungsten at a target at hypersonic speeds. More technically, they use high muzzle velocity and a small impact area to penetrate, and sometimes over penetrate the target. Would not be used against any other target (though possibly hardened structures maybe) except in extremis. Incidently, these are also the best rounds for currently piercing composite tank armour.

Thats my take on it. So with that in mind:

The Battle Cannon's Anti-Tank rounds are certainly HESH or HEAT rounds. [based on stats]

The Vanquishers Anti-Tank rounds are most likely APFSDS. [based on stats]

I should probably have mentioned something about rifled/smoothbore barrels and will do if necessary, but please don't make it so lol

I fully understand the concepts of spalling and modern anti-tank rounds, being something of a military technologies aficionado myself. That said, they specifically identify the AT rounds in the Beta as "sacrific[ing] explosive capacity for a hardened core". These aren't HEAT or HESH rounds. They're closer to APFSDS in description, but I'd even go so far as to say, since this is the Imperium and closer to WWI and WWII tanks than MBTs, we're dealing with great big metal bullets. I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make with the calibre of the different cannons, and there's no way that loading an AT Earthshaker round is going to yield the same blast template as a standard Earthshaker. Further, yes, some AT rounds explode, but they typically are focused explosions meant to cause spalling, armor rupture, or plasma jets inside the target, not to lay down a generalized five meter blast radius. As it stands, an anti-tank shell is just as good for taking down infantry as a standard shell. I think there should be a loss of efficacy against softer targets as a trade-off for the sheer armor-killing power of an AT shell. The force of the AT is focused into one point to breach armor, whereas the standard shell (**** FFG for making an HE shell so I can't just call it that) disperses its force in a radius blast. Shaped charge versus frag grenade, really.

Gaire said:

Which begs the question, why does the HE round even exist? Profile wise, its not an improvement for the battle cannon, the earthshaker, or the demolisher cannon. All three of those do something better, without being a specialty round. The only cannon it would improve is the vanquisher. Is it plainly a matter of rarity (standard artillery ammo is "very rare" whereas the HE shell is "rare")?

Why not have an AT shell double pen, but half blast (if any), and have an HE half pen, but increase blast radius by one half? It would maintain flavour with each type of cannon (without homogenizing it between most of the specialty shells).

Yes, this means AT rounds are awesome on vanquishers (but they kinda are like that in TT).

Well, fluff-wise, Vanquishers can pierce Titan armor with ease, so it's not like giving them Pen 32 against armor 45 or 50 is that absurd.

While it says it can puncture Titan armour it does not say how easily or by how much. It could create tiny little gaps or do little better than buckle the armour (which would still be a hell of an accomplishment.

Most of my post about AT rounds and gun calibre was to vainly demonstrate that the Vanquisher Cannon will almost certainly have its own exclusive rounds, that the gun its self is incompatible with regular Battle Cannon rounds and that, the way it is currently stat'd, it's probably already using its AT rounds. I would also, potentially argue that its Pen be increased to circa 20.

A potentially easier way of dealing with the issue of damage etc, is to treat Cannons [battle, Vanquisher, Earthshaker] like Launchers and treat shells like Grenades/Missiles. That then allows you to add cannon specific advantages to particular rounds, such as a Vanq firing AT rounds.

Just a thought

That might work, yeah. I guess my point was that, as it stands, the special artillery shells section doesn't exactly make sense. They're rather clearly all based on the Battle Cannon and don't take into account the abilities of the other guns.

Edit: Maybe not, but as it stands, there's a lot of redundancy and stuff that doesn't work as well as it could.

For a simple typo, page 136:

REDUCED WEIGHT
This customisation involves replacing as many parts of
the weapon as possible with alternative components made
of lighter weight materials.Weapons that undergo this
customisation decrease their weight by 20%, or a minimum of
a 0.5 kg loss.

There's a space missing between "materials." and "Weapons".

pg 135 suspensors

allows the user to fire the weapon on semi- or full auto as a half action.

this should be removed as these actions are already half actions now.

the signal jammer and static generator seem to do similiar things.

no range or radius is given for the signal jammer.

the static generator says it is easy to locate (and thus not as good as the signal jammer) but it is more rare (very rare compared to rare).

In 11th Hour Laspistols have Accurate and not Reliable. But here they are back to having Reliable, was this just done for that game?

pg 135 Motion Predictor

Doesn't include the bit about counting as a sight and guns may only have one sight.

P118 - Random Issue Gear

High Provender is not defined anywhere in the book.

I know what it means from playing Dark Heresy, but I'd be lying if I said I said I knew the phrase beforehand. A description in P143 (Drugs and Consumables) would be good.

Would also be useful to assign a rarity to it as a ratling could potentially use Trade (Cook) to generate some, to use as bribes for Working the System.

No description, rules or mention of Psy Focus outside of the specialist equipment: of the . Sanctioned Psyker. If I didn’t missed it.

Death Korps of Krieg have 2 Gas Grenades as part of their standard kit, and yet there's no line or rules for them in the grenade section.

Found out the hard way when my Krieg Commissar wanted to throw one in our game on Sunday.

These gas grenades should be photon flash grenades as indicated under the siege doctrine…

Going what I know of Krieg from Siege of Vraks (where in the army list the Gas Grenades are like WW1 chemical weapons and actually do damage), the Gas Grenades shouldn't operate as a Photon Flash Grenade, and I don't remember reading that anywhere, so that doesn't make sense to me.

stun grenades on p. 131 should require a toughness -20 test according to the concussive(2) trait. also the stun duration should be handled as written under the concussive trait, not just a random 1d5 rounds.

on page 136 the upgrade vox-operated is a pure fluff upgrade. shouldn't it have some kind of benefit? Also it talks about a fire selector. this upgrade isn't in the book (it would be a great one btw.)

page 135 to 136, the tripod bipod. What good does it do? It says I can mount it on a basic weapon. I guess a bipod on a basic weapon like a sniper rifle gives a bonus to ballistic tests? of halfs called shots?

Tripod/bipod exist to allow braced heavy weapons to have a broader field of fire. At base, when you brace, you must declare a 45 degree arc that makes sense to shoot at. A bipod/tripod increases that field to 90/180 degrees respectively.

KommissarK said:

Expands the field of Overwatch.

If you're looking for a bonus to BS, there is none to be found with a bipod/tripod.

p.135

silencer

where is the rule concerning "hearing shots" and what is the normal distance that those tests can be attempted at?

KommissarK said:

so on a tripod i can overwatch 180 degrees? then that should be noted there. because usually you don't brace basic weapons.

Looking at it further, I'm probably wrong about the Overwatch thing.

Quick update.

Triplex lasgun costs the same as a hot-shot lasgun while being worse in every way. Should be downgraded to Average in this testers opinon, to make it an option equal with autoguns and shotguns.