We didn't look much at gear while doing character creation the other day, but preping for making some Support Specialists has got my thinking. By my reading of the rules, Specialist Kit is in addition to Regimental Standard Kit, meaning the characters gain the Regimental main weapon as well as their specialist weapons. For most of the Guardsman Specialists, this is fine… you get a lasgun. For Weapon Specialists, it's a little odd… because you get a lasgun and another basic weapon, possibly another lasgun. For Sergeants, you get a laspistol, chainsword and a lasgun (which is a little odd). It gets even weirder for support specialists… with Storm Troopers and Ogryn being issued a lasgun along with their specialist weapons.

It occured to me that an easy fix would be to mark some of the specialists weapons as Main Weapon, replacing the standard issue lasgun. So the Weapon Specialists basic weapon, the Sergeants laspistol, the Commissar's bolt pistol, the Ogryn's ripper gun, the Ratlings long las/sniper rifle and the Storm Troopers hot-shot lasgun all become Main Weapons.

Honestly, you can just leave it back at base if you don't want to lug it around. The notion of the standard kit is nice when considering the logistical nightmare it would be to organize the exact kit everyone should get.

Heck, the weapon specialist's Armsman comrade passive almost seems designed for this. Also, a lasgun is hardly so over powered you have to make sure the non guardsman characters don't get one.

According to the equipment section, guys with specialist weapons still get a lasgun (or whatever the regimental weapon is). If you're a Weapon Specialist with a meltagun, it's still nice to have a secondary weapon with a little more range when there's no tank to kill - or when the meltagun is destroyed and the logistic situation is catastrophic enough that you can't get a new one.

If you don't need it, you can leave it back at base.

Eh, I see your point… but I still give the Departmento Munitorium scribes enough credit not to issue a lasgun to an Ogryn. A crate of tongue depressors and some ratling sized cold weather gear for deployment on a tropical deathworld sure (I've seen MASH) but not a lasgun.

(Speak of MASH… Radar O'Reilly, ratling psyker (!) ).

has anyone calculated of the weight of the standard issue gear?