Hello all,

The developers have posted their weekly update ! Please use this thread if you wish to discuss its contents.

Thank you for your continued support.

Huzzah linguistics!

Da''wwww, poor Storm Troopers.

Lol frenzy fix for Ogryns. At least now they most certainly don't pass out when they frenzy.

Do Slugga Boyz really need to deal 1 more point of damage? I mean I guess the Nobs dealing less is nice…

Overall, not much rocking the boat.

As for week 3 testing…

Having to remember to buy quick draw/dodge/parry and all of that. As a Commissar, its cheap enough (especially since we accidently started play thinking doubled up aptitudes = any other aptitude of players choice, instead of linked to an existing aptitude, so I have a commissar with Defence aptitude, and the GM has decided to leave as is, since the players are having fun).

In a Mechanised Company, we're finding we want to make sure we all have the weapon trainings for the guns on the vehicle.

Into the Jaws of Hell/Iron Discipline feel significantly weaker, given that Fearless is just as good for any individual (and is simply a t2 talent + t3 talent to get). Also, the pre-reqs for Jaws is just too high compared to Fearless.

The pre-requisites for Die Hard feel too hard, given how difficult WP 40 might be for some. But its necessity is certainly there (given the amount of blood loss possible from RF).

I definitely find my commissar going for Fearless right away (as fainting in battle was kind of embaressing). Beyond that, Step aside, a few ranks in dodge/parry. I am actively choosing to avoid dual wielding, as I see it as a major XP sink. While useful, I could dump all that xp into something else.

I do feel Sound Constitutions are far too expensive for most people. Given how universally useful wounds are, Toughness/General aptitudes feel far more appropriate for them.

The group's Weapon Specialist (played up as a scout) really wants the ability to plant bombs and such, but finds Tech Use to be quite expensive.

Nobody is training Common Lores. And it feels quite odd that a Common Lore is equally as expensive as a Forbidden Lore.

KommissarK said:

In case you did not know, KommissarK, when you ahve an Operate skill, your would automatically know how to use the weapon on the vehicle (as it is written that they showed you how to use it on top of learning how to drive it) just so there is not XP drain for operators having to learn every type of weapon talents there is to use everything (just for a Sentinel driver, that would be 4; Flame, las, Plasma, SP, so he can use every weapon configuration the book.)

Excellent news. Thanks for that, must of missed that blurb.

This mainly affects our weapon specialist, but I think he might opt to keep his training, all he actually took was heavy weapon training, and thats going to help during Against the Savages, as we just took the depot, and there are all these autocannons there…

KommissarK said:

Nice! mine are still at the base, still into the landing firefight. They should complete that and possibly start the jungle trek this week, not to mention spend a little XP from the battle; will post as soon as I get comebacks.

I really don't like the reduction of the Storm Trooper Carapace to normal light Carapace. I mean, the Storm Trooper Carapace would be the signature item of a stormtrooper- and replacing it with a light carapace feels wrong. Would have prefered to reduce the specialist equipment to normal quality if it would have been to strong- but never had this impression…

Well it seems the armour type was clarified. Unfortunately it was never stated as stromtrooper carapace, only as carapace. Well but I do not understand why imperial Worlds lose Linguistic (High Gothic) and I wonder if all characters get Linguistic (Imperial Codes) like mentioned in the skill chapter, even after they added Linguistic (Low Gothic) separately for every home world.

The direction FFG seems to be taking with the Storm Trooper is that of a party tank (Toughness bonus, better armor) so this lowering of armor baffles me. I really think they should have +5 BS instead of +5 T (they're given much better guns; you'd think they would be better shots due to the training) and keep the good armor.

Repeating the variable lasgun settings, better Pen for lasguns, and the distant hope of a Tauros, just like every other week.

Can someone explain the enemy profile changes?

Great to see everyone start with a shared language, now.

Just to answer a simple math question - the Ork Boy has an extra point of damage because the damage now includes Crushing Blow. Choppas are 1d10+1 damage base, plus SB4, +1 for Crushing Blow (WSB 3 / 2 = 1.5, rounded down to 1), hence 1d10+6.

First, a question about Favoured Weapons: Does everyone begin with one if it's bought for the standard kit? Or do you buy one total? Also, how much ammunition is handed out for those?

The stormtrooper is really baffling. The item is called Stormtrooper carapace! That should IMO hint at whose standard equipment it should be… I understand that it's pretty strong armour, but I'd rather do away with the Good Quality than hand over a mere Light Carapace, especially as there's no option to permanently upgrade the kit later on. Thus, a stormtrooper becomes no more or less likely to attain a Stormtrooper Carapace than anyone else.

Frenzy… I guess it's a good thing Ogryns don't pass out from it. However, making the benefits apply to tests only as well severely devalues them - until now, one of the largest benefits was the +1 to damage and soak. If that is removed, you're left with the +10 WS unless you're grappling (Str), being poisoned or knocked out (Tou) or psyked (Wil) - all of those are IMO rather special circumstances. The talent's effects thus become somewhat… underwhelming, considering the danger of failing to come out of frenzy. Right now, I absolutely wouldn't take it as an Ogryn (and neither the Comrade).

@Luther:

Canonically High Gothic is only spoken by very well-educated people (high ranking priests, nobles, lord commanders, etc) and 99% of the population can't speak it. That's why even Imperial Worlders only have Low Gothic, since that's what the vast majority of the population speaks.

@Cifer: In regards to Favoured Weapons, from the Beta Updates:

“Favoured Weapons: Each regiment has weapons that its members prefer to wield, or simply have a natural aptitude for. Each regiment may choose one Basic weapon and one Heavy Weapon to be their Favoured Weapons, these weapons mat not have an Availability higher than Very Rare. Members of this Regiment gain a +10 bonus on all Logictics Tests to obtain those weapons and ammunition for them.”

@Cifer: Yes I wonder that too, because it is not specified if everybody gets one if you buy the option for the standard regiment kit or just one per squad. The same for the heavy weapon, but at least there would be one for every one a bit overkill.

@HTMC: Well maybe. It just surprising, because in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader player characters from imperial World at least could speak High Gothic because they get it untrained. So maybe at least something along the line of the change of the highborn, just for High Gothic instead of Low Gothic.

And maybe Commissar and Strom Trooper should get Linguistic (High Gothic), because of the Schola Progenium Background? They shouldn't lose the ability to understand and speak it or not?

I think they changed Stormtrooper's armor mainly because people were complaining that many Stormtroopers were unable to carry their starting gear at chargen, though I think that the solution goes way too far. If they gave them best quality light carapace then they would have the same AP as stormtrooper carapace, which you could rename to heavy carapace to avoid confusion, and argue that heavy carapace is used by worse equipped grenadier units.

That would be a really bad reason, because they have the exactly same weight.

Luther Engelsnot said:

Okay, didn't notice that, mostly because it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. It's called "light" for a reason!

I woould suggest giving Imperial Worlders "Fluincy High Gothic", this way we stay more in line with the other lines such as DH, and RT.

Santiago said:

That seems appropriate.

On a different note, I do not like the rewording of Frenzy. Characteristic Penalties, unlike damage, never risk incapacitating your character anyway, as per the BC FAQ. Meanwhile, the new wording heavily implies one doesn't get the +1 SB and TB, which was always the main reason to take Frenzy.

Reducing TB for Stormboyz is great. There was no fluff reason they should be tougher then the rest of boyz. Now boost NPC Ogryns S/T/W and PC Ogryns S/T. I do not like Storm Trooper with light carapace. They are best equipped troops in IG and together with Hellgun [now called hotshot lusgun] ST carapace is their signature wargear.

I do not like replacing lusgun with variable settings for triplex in chaos renegade militia profile. I would remove triplex from game and replace it with lusgun with variable settings [low and high as described in Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer]. It would be both fluffy and make ubiquitous lusgun used more instead being replaced with first occasion for other guns.

Plushy said:

I agree with +5 BS instead of +5 T. Tank role should be fulfiled by Ogryn.

1. I don't like rewording of Frenzy. '

2. I agree with everyone that stormtroopers should have Storm Trooper Carapace. If you think it's too much, take away good quality from their hot-shot lasgun and armour as well.

3. Change wording for primitive quality, to better reflect their limited efectivness on modern armour (as is stated in the quality) and increase their deadlines against unarmoured targets to:

Crude and basic in design, these kinds of weapons while still deadly, are less effective against modern armour. When rolling for Damage with these weapons, against target having Machine Trait or wearing non-primitive armour, any dice roll greater than the number in parenthesis (X) counts as that number. For example, a weapon with Primitive (7) would count all Damage rolls of 8, 9, or 0 as 7. These weapons can still generate Righteous Fury as normal, on a Damage roll of 0.

Stormtroopers not getting Storm Trooper Carapace does seem really odd to me. Why not bump it down to normal quality if it's a power issue?

And I have a quibble with the Highborn Fluency entry. It makes perfect sense for deathworlders to be illiterate (if one allows that making them carry a copy of the uplifting primer but not teaching them to read it is very … 40k) but for the highborn?

I haven't seen anything to suggest that High and Low Gothic are using different alphabets, and therefore being literate in one of them means being literate in the other. Just like someone literate in French is also literate in German, English, Spanish or any other language that uses the Roman alphabet. Even if a few of them have an extra few characters, it's not a major impediment to learning. Indeed once you are literate, learning a new language without learning to read it is actually much more work than not. Even if you do need to soak up a new alphabet that's nothing compared to learning a new vocabulary and grammar.

So I just don't see any fluff or game balance reason for this particular rule. It simply makes no sense.

@Andor

I haven't seen anything to suggest that High and Low Gothic are using different alphabets, and therefore being literate in one of them means being literate in the other. Just like someone literate in French is also literate in German, English, Spanish or any other language that uses the Roman alphabet. Even if a few of them have an extra few characters, it's not a major impediment to learning. Indeed once you are literate, learning a new language without learning to read it is actually much more work than not. Even if you do need to soak up a new alphabet that's nothing compared to learning a new vocabulary and grammar.

I disagree. While obviously uncommon nowadays, it's quite possible to learn a foreign language without learning to write it. Comparing German with French and English, the pronunciation is much different.

@HTMC

@Cifer: In regards to Favoured Weapons, from the Beta Updates:

“Favoured Weapons: Each regiment has weapons that its members prefer to wield, or simply have a natural aptitude for. Each regiment may choose one Basic weapon and one Heavy Weapon to be their Favoured Weapons, these weapons mat not have an Availability higher than Very Rare. Members of this Regiment gain a +10 bonus on all Logictics Tests to obtain those weapons and ammunition for them.”

I was referring to the "Add one favored Basic/Heavy weapon" entry that you pay regiment points for. Unlike other table entries, it doesn't continue with "to standard kit", so are those 1/squad or 1/trooper?

Cifer said:

I think it means 1/squad, like a Chimera or a LR. 1/trooper would be absurd.

Pretty sure the favoured heavy/basic weapon supply options only add 1 per squad. 1 for everyone would get a bit strange… "Lascannons for everyone!" All of a sudden, the game just turns into a matter of cranking up your SB/TB so you can lug around your new toy, get bulging biceps, then boost your BS. Instant win any real encounter by having 4-6 people with lascannons focus firing everything.

Will say the cure is worse than the disease for Frenzy. It was only semi debatable Ogryns would pass out with a -20 to int from something like that, but now we've lost some of Frenzy's greater aspects.

As far as Storm Trooper Carapace, I do feel they should start with the stuff, but it always did seem that the good quality armour was a bit much. I would be slow to give good quality armour to starting characters if only because those rules are a pain to keep track of, and the starting aspects of any specialty should be simple enough for new players.

I'm fine with Storm Troopers playing a tankier role than your average guardsman (Currently, Ogryns, Sergeants, and even Heavy Gunners posses the tanky abilities, with Storm Troopers and Tech Priests in a close second. Everything else is quite a ways off in tanky ability). They do have the carapace armour after all. Also, a base +5 T increases their ability to lug their gear around, a trait they would of built up over the years. I certainly agree they should have Offence aptitude (as Offence goes along with quite a few cool combat talents that would be the result of advanced training). With that, having the Finesse or Defence aptitude may be more appropriate than the WS aptitude (as Storm Troopers have never really been notable melee combatants). Personally, I'd like to see them with Defence, as that at least opens up another set of talents and skills that they'd probably be able to train.