Kshatriya said:

Well I think that the rules are based around fighting living things that dodge and weave, not tanks. You should automatically hit a tank.

In a melee combat, you are always fighting a small number of foes at any given moment, no matter how many may be a few feet behind them.

I'm ok with the Stormbolter being straight up better then a normal bolter. It's pretty much the upgraded version of the bolter.

I have always thought the Storm Bolter should have been a Heavy weapon, not Basic.

Unholy_Ravager said:

That's definitely fine.

What is NOT fine is the Storm Bolter being better than a Heavy Bolter.

The wording on my post was off. The intent of the change to to limit the Storm Bolters power in most situations. The key to this is the double scaling from Storm that makes it literally twice as good as the Godwyn-pattern and gives it so many potential hits. I would also change the RoF to S/3/- [or S/2/3 if you use the BC combat rules] to match the Godwyn, but that isn't really necessary if the RoF isn't doubled by Storm.

The suggestion should also help with the Storm Bolter being downright better in all situations than the Meltagun or Plasmagun. There should be niches that these weapons fit into, and not clear tiers of power where one weapon is better than all. Even with these changes the SB might be better than the more specialized weapons simply because of special ammunition.

Someone said "It can still get more shots (and more damage output) than a heavy bolter for equal amounts of DoS required for maximum hits."

I don't think that is right because the Storm Bolter only fires on single and semi (every 2 DoS equals another hit)…not full. Which means he has to get 8 DoS to get the 8 hits he needs. The heavy bolter firing on full auto gets a 1 for 1 DoS and only needs to get 6 in comparison. Right?

It's the base success part that throws that off. I'm assuming the errata stats here:

Base success (0 degrees) HB: 1 hit SB: 2 hits

1 degree HB: 2 SB 2

2 degrees HB: 3 SB 4

3 degrees HB: 4 SB 4

4 degrees HB: 5 SB 6

5 degrees HB: 6(MAX) SB 6

6 degrees HB: 6 SB 8(MAX)

Nathiel said:

This table is accurate- it takes 5 full degrees of success to get max hits with the HB and 6 with the SB because of the initial success to hit.

Raw damage output would have the SB doing somehwere in the neighborhood of 10-12 more damage on a 'full hit.'

But I'd say in response to that there are a lot of other factors that make up the weapons.

1. Damage Output: The HB's individual shots will, on average, do 3 more damage and 1more pen than the SB. As a GM I can say extra pen and slight extra damage per hit can be of substantial importance.

2. Range: The Heavy Bolter fires 50 meters further than the storm bolter using standard ammunition

3. Cost: Both Weapons are 20 req

4. Renown: HB is available to all marines, the Storm only to those of Respected or higher (which means you have to play a bit before you pick one up)

5. Clip Size: By default, the Heavy Bolter comes with a backpack of 250 rounds, otherwise known as 41 ridiculous rounds of continuous firing before needing to be reloaded versus the Storm Bolter's 60 round clip which will go in 7 rounds. Not important in all campaigns I know, but it's an item of note.

6. Enemy Dodges: An enemy dodges one hit per degree of success against a heavy bolter, but two hits per degree of success against a storm bolter

All in all, I think they're two different weapons, used by different folks for different reasons. In some cases I still agree with DJ though about some of the weapons feeling 'better' but for me that often comes down to specialty ammo. The Boltgun was made an excellend all arounder, and sometimes other weapons feel so terribly specialized it can be annoying and feel like it's counter to the existing fiction.