Hi again,

Now i'm hoping someone more familiar with the Black Crusade/Only War style combat mechanics than I am can clear this up for me.

Under Using Actions on page 175 of the Only War Beta it says that

"In addition, characters in Only War may only take one Action with the Attack subtype and one Action with the Concentration subtype during their turn. They may still take Reactions with the Concentration or Attack subtype during the same round, since this does not happen during their Turn."

Which is nice a clear and straight-forward.

That is until you get to page 184 and the rules for Two Weapon Fighting, which state that if a character has Two Weapon Wielder (Melee) they can perform two lightening attacks in a round (oe with each weapon), or if they have Two Weapon Wielder (Ballistic) they can Full-auto with both weapons in the same round.

Please could someone let me know if this interpritation is accurate as I'm a little confused by the clash?

Regards

Surak

Basically, special rule overrides general rule here.

With Two-Weapon Wielder a character can make two attacks (one with each weapon) as a Half Action. Both attacks must be tested for separately. With TWW, but without Ambidextrous and Blade Dancer/Gunslinger/Sidearm the main hand attack takes a -20 penalty, the off-hand takes a -40 penalty. With Ambidex that is -10 for both. With Blade Dancer/Gunslinger/Sidearm and Ambidex it is +0.

And yes, you can make two Lightning Attacks (if you have the talent), two Full-autos, one Standard Attack and a Swift Attack and any other possible combination of attacks. So a Lightning Attack with your off-hand -without Ambidex and Blade Dancer/Sidearm- would be -50 (-40 after a Half Aim), while shooting a bolt pistol on semi-auto with your main hand in the same turn is -20 (-10 after a Half Aim).

Hmm… not sure how much I like the idea of two Lightning Attacks in a turn. As far as I know it shouldn't be possible. Part of this is probably my fault (I wrote Chapter 8), so I'll have to look into it and the Talents Chapter and see where I've (potentially) got my wires crossed.

BYE

Saibot H.B.M.C thank you both for your fast reply's.

Saibot thank you for confirming to me my interpritation of the rules as-written.

H.B.M.C thank you for clearing up how they were intended to be.

With regards to the extra (off hand) attack from Two Weapon Wielder would a possible solution be to say that someone could Lightening attack with there main hand and then Swift Attack with there off hand, or Swift attack then Standard Attack if they don't have lightening attack.

Also where do you think the rules should stand on two Full-Auto actions in one round?

Regards

Surak

This topic does remind me of something else related to TWW: When you perform an Aim (Half or Full) before a TWW attack do both attacks profit from it or do you have to select one? I have been curious about this since Black Crusade.

You could in Black Crusade, so there is a precedent. Also, as long as you can do 2 Full Auto Bursts with 2 autopistols, it's only "fair" that you can do the same with melee weapons, right?

Hi all,

Ok we've had our first session of combat using the Only War combat rules and our resident rules-Lawyer (I'm sure we all have one in our groups) has led me to believe that Two-Weapon Wielder could benefit from a little bit of re-wording.

He is trying to claim that using Two Weapon Wielder Melee and Balistic should allow him to perform 2 Full-Auto bursts and a lightening attack and a standard melee attack all in the same turn. He believes this because at no point in the Two Weapon Wielder rules does it say that these actions still count as Half Actions, infact he is using the wording of Full-Auto where it says

"If the Character has a pistol in each hand and both are capable of fully autmatic fire, he may fire both with this action"

to claim that Full Auto itself allows for two pistols to be fired as a Half Action. He is also trying to use the option uder Two Weapon Fighting to fire one pistol on Full Auto and one on semi auto as a justification that they are combined into one half action.

Can I have a little guidence as to the way the Two Weapon combat is meant to work as at the moment i've got at least 2 players convinced they can Full Auto 4 times a turn because of the combination of Two Weapon Wielder Ballistic and Full Auto.

Regards

Surak

Surak said:

Well its simple, they can make 2 attacks (any combination) as a half action which as a single attack action , this does indeed leave a half action spare to do something, however they can not make another attack as you are only allowed one attack action per round (P 175 of the PDF).

It is worth checking the rules on action types per round, and what types of attack are available, as a note in BC you could All out/swift/single attack on a charge in Only War it is a single attack

I might be mistaken but I believe that you cannot take the exact same action twice and cannot normaly even take two action of the same type in one turn (another example is that a psyker cannot use two powers in a turn normally). But Two Weapon lets you ignore the second part of that, so you can make two attacks but I would think you would still not be allowed to make two of the exact same actions.

So (assuming you have the needed talents/weapons) with Two Weapon you can use Full-auto with one gun and Semi-auto with the other but not Full-auto with both.

In melee you can make a Lightning Attack and then a Swift Attack with the other weapon.

With both melee and gun you could use Full-auto and then Lightning Attack.

This is how we did it in Black Crusade because it seemed to make sense but that's just me and my group.

To further the point that you can only do one type of an action each round, look at the "Ready" action. It specifically has to be worded that you can do it twice in the same round, just so that yes, people can ready/draw two pistols in one turn.

Really the only thing "new" as opposed to anything from DH/RT/DW (but as seen in BC), is that an off hand melee weapon can have more than one attack. And that brings it in line with how an off hand pistol was able to autofire.

Given the penalties, its not terribly broken. The worst part is probably how powerful certain one handed melee weapons can be, but they're not in OW it would seem (one handed thunder hammers, etc.).

KommissarK said:

Whoa, whoa, I know that was important and this is off topic, but where is the one handed Thunder Hammer!?

Well I guess that was more in DW, but it was what I had in mind when I read BC's rules with TWW.

By the way, when using recoil gloves or a modified stock, will dual wielding basic weapons be considered pistols for the purposes of Gunslinger? Assuming the character had enough Str/T to hold them up.

Rawrsong said:

I would think not, just from Deathwatch and Black Crusade where marines can use basic weapons one handed with no problem. They don't become pistols in my opinion because they are still treated as Basic in effect to every other rule, such as weapon upgrades and in other games even weapon training (for example, in DH having Pistol SP training did not mean if you had recoil gloves you could use an autogun without the Basic SP training).

*edit*

Ah nevermind, I'm thinking of the Micro weapon upgrade from RT:Hostile Acquisitons that shrinks basic weapons down to pistol size. Doubt we'll ever see that one on a regular IG considering it's pretty much a complete rebuild of the weapon. A Commissar would kill an IG and skull-**** his ghost if he saw that degree of profanity of the Emperor's gear.

ohh and yes for some reason thunder hammers are one handed weapons even though they really should be two handed weapons that terminators can use one handed but no there one handed, infact in one edition of the table top game you would get a extra attack in close combat if armed with two of them..yes double thunder hammer action so moronic it makes me sick.