There is a situation, that has long troubled our RT/DW/BC, and now OW, gaming group which we hoped would have been clarified in Only War, but so far hasn't been touched.

The situation I am talking about is the fact of destroying enemy guns. Ever since I wanted to make a sniper Tactical Marine, who specialized in denying enemy resources/weapons we have had the problem of how much guns and such can actually take damage and what are the effects of shooting them. While the vehicle Weapon critical hits on page 206 of OW are a bit of a step forward, there is still room for improvement.

Black Crusade brought us the ruling that Daemon Weapons have "Uncanny Resilience"(page 194 of Black Crusade core) and as such have a natural armour of 20, but it still fails to tell us that are the weapons destroyed if they take a hit of 21 damage or more.

So now I ask you, do you think what I am wondering is a valid question? I, for one, see huge potential in being able to destroy the heavy guns that the enemies are using. If for example, you are against a horde of dirty traitor guardsmen manning a single mortar, isn't it better to simply deny the mortar from the enemy at large instead of using valuable Imperial ammunition to slaughter the horde manning it one by one? Of course if you destroy something like a mortar, your squad can't use it themselves either!

What I am suggesting is that it would be nice to have some sort of official ruling that how much armour and "structural integrity" different craftmanship and size weapons have. This wouldn't require more than some sort of small table saying what effects improved have and whats the baseline difference between a pistol, basic, heavy and mounted weapons. A best quality autocannon is going to be much harder to destroy than a poor quality stub revolver!

Asoral said:

It sure is a valid question however I don't think that its something that needs to be written in the core rulebook or even any of the major supplements.
Destroying weapons is such a rare event (especially for handheld weaponry) that it doesn't need its own set of rules. Differnetiating between low and high quality, large and small would make this much more complicated that it really is.
Just make up a number (maybe 10) and once a gun takes more damage than that it is destroyed. It's really not something that needs to be in the core rulebook.

If you want something more complex just make up some attribute that each weapon possesses (like weapon toughness) and roll to damage whenver it takes a certain amount (maybe with the damage as a penalty).

In genreral though I feel like that would just slow the game down while adding hardly any enjoyability.
For all those situation where you're exploding a mortar with a meltabomb you don't need rules that tell you that the mortar will be destroyed after being hit by an anti tank weapon.

I'm going to agree with Musclewizard, although it's an interesting point I think it would add rarely-used clutter to an already-full weapons table. Although I agree the idea of destroying weapons is cool in theory, I don't think it occurs often enough to warrant having official rules: think about how often people engaged in real-world firefights actually get the guns they're holding shot. Even in the case of heavy weapon emplacements, it's almost always easier to simply target the gunners rather than try to shoot the guns themselves. I think in the majority of the situations where a weapon would be damaged it will be really obvious what the result will be, for instance Musclewizard's meltabomb example, and thus I think it makes more sense to leave it in the hands of the GM.

What I proposed wasn't adding a new thing to the cluttered weapons table, but even a small table/box of a few paragraphs of text talking about this optional rule. No need for every weapon to have its own stats, but rather official baselines for types of weaponry.

We have already used houseruling for this, but its just that it really slows down the game when the GM has to think fitting numbers for everything. For example, how much damage do you need to deal to a belt fed heavy bolters belt feed for it to stop working? How many shots with a accurate sniper bolter do you need to destroy a mounted lascannon? How many krak grenades?

Without rules these kind of situations becomes a point where you more or less have to agree that you won't do such things as you have no idea about the numbers and mechanics for such a thing. What you find to be a thing that would hinder, bog down and clutter the game more because its a optional thing, I and my group(s) find to be a thing that slows games down because there IS no rule for it.

About the so-called fact of enjoyability, we had to scrap our idea for a fun style of play/regiment of stealthy saboteurs who destroy enemy bunkers, encampments and weapons because there is no satisfactory way to houserule these things.

There are even currently many optional rules in all the rulebooks that I don't think many people use or even know about. Why not make this one also?

Asoral said:

See, the mistake you are making is that if you're making houserules as a GM you odn't need to make up numbers. At then end of the day the numbers are there to make what is happening reasonable.

As long as you can create a reasonable reaction to the action of the player everything is fine even without exact numbers involved.
All the things you mentioned (destroying a belt feet, destroying a mounted lascannon with different weapons, playing a stealthy saboteur regiment) is all perfectly possible even without any precise number. Here's what I'd do (made up with almost no preperation) if my player tried to do something like you described.

I'd classify explosives (and similar weaponry) into 3 or 4 categories.
Anti-Personal (Frag anything)
High Penetration
Anti-Tank
Bunker Busting

With Bunker Busting being the most powerful one. Now I classify the target into one of 3 to 4 categories.

Personal
High Armor
Armored Vehicle
(Armored) Building

Now all I need to compare is the category of the explosive and the target. If the explosive is in a stronger category the target is destroyed, if it's in the same it is damaged (unless a lot is used a bunker buster wouldn't remove the entire bunker, rather it would make a large hole imo), if it's in a weaker category nothing really happens.
I wouldn't make lists of all explosives or all targets and put them in categories since this would be far to much work for way to little gain. Instead I'd decide on a case by case basis.

But let me play devils advocate (I guess that's how its called) and let me ask you what entries you'd need in that table. Going by the things you've listed the following needs to be covered:

• Weapon used (frag vs. bolt sniper)
• Ammo used (bolter vs. SP)
• The precision of the weapon (i.e. sniper rifle compared to full auto fire)
• The target itself (i.e. the type of weapon and potentially where it is installed, vehicle vs. handheld)
• The quality of the target weapon
• Target Weapon component (damaging the barrel vs. damaging the bullet feed)
• All manners of materials from bunkers, to radar dishes.

To be honest, I don't like regular equipment damage. It's just a part of realism that I don't need in a game. Consider - wounds will usually heal, but the Inquisitor's valued gift of an inferno pistol will stay broken after that krak grenade. Equipment stats are also one more number to keep track of.

On the other hand side, if equipment damage is plot-driven, you can generally make up the numbers needed beforehand and go with what feels appropriate.

Cifer said:

That pretty much sums it up for me.

"Those that sacrifice playability for realism deserve neither." -Abraham Lincoln