Yeah it's a do it all weapon, that's why I laugh at it. giving such weapons in the hands of expendible guardsmen is a waste of ressources.

Yeah I forgot how in Aliens bit was failed due to a weak, inexperienced commander and crappy intel first, rather than cowardly soldiers. And guardsmen are never gonna be send agaisnt Tyranids? Must be why they talk about it in the Uplifting primer- must be why it's all false information as well "No need to give them real xeno knowledge- Those are for Astartes after all!"

Yeah, rather be tolling away in some factorium instead of standing guard at the Spire with 3 squares/day.

Braddoc said:

Be all, do all sounds a bit too much for a gun that can trade a minimal increase in power for gratly reduced ammo efficiency or load it with drawbacks for the ability to be effective against light armored regular Joes. And no matter how good and versatile lasguns might appear now, they're still dirt cheap to produce en masse and have a theoretically inexhaustible ammo supply, so it hardly seems a waste to give them to as many people as possible.

And yes, Guardsmen fight Tyranids all the time. There simply aren't enough Space Marines in the galaxy to do it in their stead, but unlike marines, Guardsmen are regular, reasonably sensible humans with a mostly intact instinct of preservation, so if you're going to make a surgical strike against the unholy horror that melts people brains through the sheer terror it inflicts, then perhaps you might want to give a try to the superhuman colossi the Emperor tailor-made himself precisely for those kind of jobs.

Incidentally, the Imperium tries to keep Tyranid awareness on the general populace to an absolute minimum, because if people realized the real scope of the Tyranid threat, the Imperium would be facing absolute chaos and Guardsmen would start deserting en masse. That's why the Uplifting Primer is a mite untruthful, no need to crush the bright eyed recruit's hopes by revealing to him that his main form of attack is going to be as effective as a gentle breeze and that those "puny claws" will rip both his armor and his ribcage as if they were an egg-and-bacon sandwich. Marines get real info because that info tends to be "you're most likely going to die horribly" and they're perfectly fine with that. They'll die with their bolters down the enemies throat. Most people don't have that kind of dedication and conviction because most people aren't as insane.

Finally, a comfy job as a PDF ain't that bad, as WH40k standards go, but getting drafted for the Guard means you are going to be pulled apart from everything and everyone you have ever known, that even if you survive you will never see your homeworld again and that, most likely, you're going to die a brutal and gruesome death unknown and unloved and literally light years away from everyone who might have cared about your passing.

Day job at the Manufactorum doesn't seem so horrible compared to that.

@Braddoc

I think you're being rather emotional about this. Please take a step away and a deep breath.

As for your comparison between BC and its Space Marines, think about it this way: There are no explicit mortal combat specialists. You can make a Renegade become one, but there's a reason the one sample Renegade is fellowship-focused while the other is a medic. Both can fight a little, but they're not intended to compete with CSMs in that arena. In Only War, combat will be a main part of the game, just like in DW. Making one character just plain better should be done with extra XP, not by choosing the right specialization.

Who are you to judge my state of mind and how I take things?

If you people want the same thing is a different package, fine by me; I still say that apart from the Ogryn, anyone who wants to play a melee specialists is rather screwed, since you either got to be the dumb-as-bricks mountain of muscles, or a commissar, which is again far from being a specialty for the commissar (since they only get a single aptitude). At least the storm trooper had some WS skills without being a drooling idiot who sticks out in any situation or a commissar. You know a real soldier rather than filler

Actually, as they are now, the Sarge, the Weapon Specialist, the Priest, the Storm Trooper and the Enginseer are just as competent melee fighters as the Comissar, but none of them are as good as the Ogryn for what should be obvious reasons. The Imperial Guard is the closest thing to a modern day army you're gonna get, and you'll find that no army teaches their soldiers fencing in detriment of marksmanship. Real soldiers don't drop their gun to charge screaming, sword in hand.

Most armies in WH40k have melee monsters that can lead, but the IG has leaders that can melee. There's a sublte difference.

And the problem with the Storm Trooper was that he had excellent melee skills while only having some talent at shooting. That was just plain wrong.

Go back and check the first post; the ST had equal talents in both melee and ranged.

Braddoc said:

I did and bothered counting them. The old ST had a whooping total of 4 cheap ranged talents vs. 8 cheap melee talents. How is that equal?

JuankiMan said:

I counted the same amount of melee talents (ambidextrous being one of those), but I saw 6 ranged talents (adding ambidextrous makes it 7)

Ambidextrous, Rapid Reload, Storm of Iron, Arms Master, Eye of Vengeance, Lasgun Barrage, Mighty Shot. So not a combat melee monster, but he's got a few wild cards up his proverbial sleeve.

Compared to the new, who only got Double Team and Crippling Strike, it is rather a steep drop in orientation.

Also, the elite trooper of the guard does not have ambidextrous cheaply now. The Ogryns got it cheap still…It does not reflect "the best of the best" idea the Strom Troopers should have..or the ogryns too stupid to know what a dominant hand is perhaps?

Braddoc said:

Ambidextrous and Arms Master are not dedicated ranged talents, so either they don't count, making it 5 (I missed Storm of Iron) ranged versus 9 (also missed Preternatural Speed) melee, or they count for both, making 7 ranged versus 11 melee. Regardless it matters little, because you keep completely disregarding single-Aptitude talents, which represent areas of competence rather than specialization, of which the ST has 25 exclusively for melee. Hardly defenseless.

And it makes a bizarre and quirky kind of sense that Ogryns get Ambidextrous cheap. Since they're too stupid to know what a dominant hand is they end up using both indistictively!

Still for elite shock troops, compared to the Ogryn (who seems to be 'normal' shock troops) they are far from being anything short of not being shock troopers if only in name.

And yes, I ignore the talents who only got a single aptitude, because 2 aptitude means it's a focus. I'd rather see ST being capable in melee and ranged rather than one sided. The weapon specialist is better in melee than the elite trooper, which for me makes it nonsence as the Weap spec is considered the 'die by the millions' guardsman. so the canon fodder is better than the elite who are trained almost form birth? I found this hard to believe, especially with the fact that a lasgun is easier to learn than a bullet gun, and bullet guns are easy to use nowadays.

Yeah I agree the Ogryn might be too dumb to know the 'dominant hand system', but still, it is odd to me.

Braddoc said:

Exactly, 2 Aptitudes is a focus, which means that the Storm Trooper focuses primarily on using his very, very expensive gun. If he was focused on melee he would do like the Ogryn and carry a gun that doubles as a freakin' warhammer. And the Weapon Spec is not a "die by the millions Guardsman". That's what Comrades are for. He's the vey best Guardsman he can be. He's the anonymous hero that kills the tank, the guy that breaks the line, the last man that holds the objective. Were the Storm Trooper has his training and his toys, the Weapon Spec has his raw talent and his veterancy, and if you take a look at the Codex, Imperial Guard Veterans have exactly the same profile as Storm Troopers.

The Schola makes Storm Troopers superior. The Weapon Spec makes himself.

Oh, and Ogryns looks like shock troops because that's exactly what they are, by virtue of being large, powerful and very difficult to kill. Storm Troopers can be used as shock troops too, blasting the enemy with accurate bursts of short-range fire like, you know, modern shock troops , but they're trained for a lot more.

JuankiMan said:

A Mite untruthful is the Uplifting Primer???