borithan said:

Perhaps 1d10+7, as a sort of "middle ground" between both types of bolters? A slight boost to get some distance to lasguns again, yet not enough to overpower plasma and melta weapons. Or, worst case, just take the middle ground for all those weapons as well.

I'm a bit torn on the 2d10 idea - on one hand, it is certainly nice to have a solid minimum damage compared to just "2", but on the other there's Tearing - and even if you roll low a number of times in succession it could represent "overpenetration" … meaning the bolt going in on one end and leaving it on the other before detonating. Granted, they seem to have got a microsecond density-triggered fuse (at least if one were to interpret "mass-reactive" this way) … but perhaps then it could be a grazing shot or something.

I have to say I actually prefer the FFG interpretation of bolters in the sense that the Space Marines use larger guns and larger ammo.
Even if we accept that Bolters have no (or hardly any) recoil I still think it would make more sense for a group of muscled supermen to carry larger version of the weapons a normal human would carry. It's like an Ogyrn, why would you ever hand one an autogun if he could also wield an autocannon without any problems (I'm well aware that the average Ogyrn will use both as a club).
Furthermore its not like Space Marines will requisition ammunitions from the Imperial Guard. They are (or at least feel like) the 40k equivalent of Fiefdoms, Duchies and Knight Orders that are independend when it comes to their own weapons and arms but are allied with a few other Imperiums (namely the Imperium of Mankind and the Adeptus Mechanicus).

Musclewizard said:

Musclewizard said:

"Lord Commander, regretfully I have to inform you of my Chapter's departure from the siege. It appears Brother Tech-Marine Cognatus just informed me we are short on ammunition, and in His wisdom the Emperor did not wish our forces to share supplies. Good fortune with your campaign, and always remember: divided we stand!"

Matter of interpretation, though. It's no surprise that personal preferences would differ, and for what it's worth, I do believe you have a point as well (regarding the larger weapons), even if personally I don't think it is good enough to brush away all the other explanations.

Thank you for pointing out that .998 was the year of manufacture, not the caliber of the weapon. Perhaps the difference is justified like in WWII, where both the Makarov pistol and the Mosin-Nagant both had 7.62mm rounds, but rifle rounds where longer and had more mass and proppelant charge making them more powerful. Anyway, I've always assumed that the charge within the casing propels the bolt outside the barrel where the jet ignites and propels the slug the rest of the way. With this metod, the initial charge shouldn't be that large, reducing recoil, but you're still firing a hiper-massive 20mm slug, and that's gonna have a kick no matter how you slice it. Perhaps not arm-dislocating strong as firing a conventional 20mm cannon by hand would be, but still powerful.

Also, Space Marine chapters are completely self-sufficient. They manufacture their weapons and ammo themselves and can do so aboard a Battle Barge, so there is no need to depend on outside supplies, and should the need arise, Techmarines should be capable of retrofitting local manufacturing facilities to suit their purposes.

Lynata said:

I don't think Space Marines would ever be engaged in a campaign of such length that they would seriously run out of ammo. I mean sure, they might be invovled in long campaigns but Space Marines aren't made for fighting front line battles. The are known for fast and surgical attacks compared to the Hammer of the Imperium and they arrive on ships full of chapter serves and storage bays. It's not like the Imperial Guards that are packed densly onto their Ships. Even the smallest of Warp-Capable Imperial Ships would be able to carry a chapter of marines with lots and lots of room to spare for ammo, gear and vehicles.

With regards to Heavy Bolters I'd still argue that there are (or should be at least in my head canon) two types of those. The one that is carried by two humans and the one that is carried by one space marine. Let's assume a heavy bolter is the same size, weight and uses the same calibre for humans and space marines. Since bolters have no (or hardly any) recoil the deciding factor to their size would be weight (both weapon and ammo weight).
The HB in OW weighs 40k.
Two Imperial Guardsmen are required to carry a single heavy bolter (at least from what I understand about Heavy Weapon Teams in the tabletop / DoW 1 and the carrying capacity of a soldier in OW) whereas a Devestator Marine carries a HB by himself. Now a Guardsman has to carry his armour as well whereas power armour carries itself (at least in DH power armour is described as effectively not weighing anything while powered).
I'd say a SM has a SB between 8 and 10 and a TB of around 8 (based on DW pregenerated Characters). Even with the reduced carring capacity of OW this would allow a SM to carry between 675 and 1350kg.
Carrying that Heavy Bolter isn't a problem for the Space Marine, so why not make a heavier varient firing larger shells?

The Death Watch Errata lists the Astartes HB at 68kg so I assume FFG thinks about this similarly, why use a small weapon if you could also use a larger one without any problems.

I came up with the idea that the astartes bolt ammo was essentially like magnum rounds or something.

The Bolter was changed from 2d10 to make Tearing less clunky and reduce the high probability of scoring a RF.

WittyDroog said:

I thought it was because of that whole "Human bolters should make the same damage as Astartes bolters (or vice-versa) as they are firing the same round" debate that happened a while ago, and they compensated by leaving it at 1d10+9

In the dark heresy adventure book, space marine bolters were 2d10. In death watch they were 2d10+5. After the errata and and in black crusade they were 1d10+9. They were most likely changed because they were insanely powerful. As in more dangerous then astartes plasma weapons. With none of the drawbacks.

JuankiMan said:

Bottom line: There is no good reason why there has to be a difference, as it is pretty easy to explain just about anything with made-up tech excuses of the very same manner that are used to explain the Space Marines' physical superiority. It is why recoil has never, ever been even pointed out in GW material, only a gun's weight and how encumbering it may be. Thus it's obviously a simple matter of preferences. Some will like FFG's idea, some won't. Me, I don't see what this RPG has gained from the division other than a needlessly reduced compatibility for mixed groups.

Musclewizard said:

And then we have a full galaxy of people who have evolved to differ in strength averages depending on what world they hail from. Space Marines recruited from one world would be a little weaker than those recruited from another. The same goes for soldiers of the Imperial Guard. There actually are some strong humans who carry a heavy bolter solo, without power armour augmentation, in the tabletop as well as in GW's RPGs, and even here in these games.

But even if we are just going by what FFG's RPGs tell us, why should a human who is able to lug around a 40kg heavy bolter suddenly have issues with an Astartes-style boltgun that weighs 17kg, is a good deal smaller and has a lower rate of fire? He shouldn't. It just goes to show how arbitrary this has been set up.
Nope, I for one much prefer how GW handles it - at least in "Inquisitor" they actually look at the weight of the weapon and whether you are strong enough, instead of checking if your species qualifies you for the l33t gear.

However, since this RPG series is rolling with this deviation and I do not believe they'd change it now, I agree. It would be better to just give Marine bolters a bigger calibre in whatever book FFG would mention this the next time. It still would not make it look any less arbitrary, but I think it'd improve the existing explanation a little.

Lynata said:

Good point. I can't seem to find an argument there really. At least not one that I fould fully agree with.

Maybe the Space marines have always had their own "size" and manufacturing for weapons and they were never shared or ever deemed to be neccesary for humans. Maybe an Astartes Bolter takes far longer to produce than a human sized bolter simply due to the number of rites and some sanctioning process that could be involved.
I agree that it has a very game-ish feel to it but I don't really see how you could handle it differently without completly rewriting how damage is dealt (away from it relying only on the weapon and incorporating user skill somehow) Either make the space marines bolter weaker or the human bolter stronger, both would probably break the game balance of the respetive systems. Changing the Astartes Bolter would probably cause further problems making Space Marine less apropriate for their own fluff simply because their signature weapon suddenly isn't all that good anymore against a lot of powerful targets that they face .

Thanks for bringing this up though. I think the solution I'll go with (once again head canon) is that Space Marine Bolters are much more complicated than human sized Bolters and are produced using ancient chapter specific rites and techniques which are forbidden to outsiders, exceptions may apply (or something along those lines).

According to Deathwatch, regular humans can use Space Marine weapons, but treat it as one caregory more unwieldy, so a human could concievably use an Astartes Bolter, but would treat it as a heavy weapon. What he could not use is an Astartes heavy bolter, unless it was bolted down in a stable position, as it would count as a Mounted weapon.

It isn't that arbitrary.

Lynata said:

There's a bunch of easy reasons why this would be the case. To begin with, as has been addressed in Deathwatch I think: handles and triggers. SM weaponry is designed with giant Astartes hands in mind, and would mean that a normal human trying to grab even a standard SM bolter would have difficult even getting half his hand around the handle, let alone reach the trigger. You can infer this because in DW, in order to use non-SM weaponry, the SM essentially needs to spend time ripping off trigger guards and other similar actions in order to be able to fire the weapon at all.

So ya, the weight is not the issue, it's simple the design of the weapon. Just imagine someone making a weapon that would fit with a gorilla's huge hands, and then trying to have a regular human fire it: they may be able to carry it fine, but operating it efficiently is a whole other matter.

"Ssrak is not as smart as the teks with their metal face snakes, but they do a much better job of fixing up mah ripper than Ssrak can do. But Ssrak does live on a nice hot and dry planet the we share with the Spays Mareens and he has seen their shiny, pretty shooties; and also the spays mareen teks that fix up their bolters. They is mad, wicked smart and know how to make those things shoot mean…and my buddy Nayfin is a pretty good shot, but he can't shot like the Mareens from our parts. Ssrak's not so sure either way, since I can't really get my fingers into the tiny shootin' hole like Nayfin' can, so I's not for certain, but Nayfin (he's a smart guy, gonna' go places someday) says "good soldiers use their weapons better, and the Sol Raptors are the best soldiers we've got", and that makes a lotta' sense even to me…so it must make a LOTTA' sense to him."

JuankiMan said:

Aren't you forgetting that small -30 penalty to all tests, applying regardless whether you're wearing power armour or not? There is also a number of human weapons in the various supplements that are heavier than a Space Marine weapon of the same size category.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree.

HTMC said:

Well, at least you do agree that weight would not be an issue. In that case, however, how large do you have to make a bolter to become that unwieldy? What caliber would you want these guns to shoot? As the rules stand, even an Ogryn would not be able to utilise a Marine bolter properly, because regardless of his size and strength, he's no Space Marine, so that weapon will always be unfit for his "huge gorilla hands".

But the issue isn't that normal people would have a problem shooting a Marine's guns in this RPG, it is that the guns designed for them are that much worse, even where it's clear that it is the very same basic design but with a different grip.

At its core, a bolter is nothing but a barrel with a diameter of 19mm, or 25mm for a heavy bolter. Add, say, another cm for the barrel itself. The ammunition is loaded directly into the barrel and has a self-propelling charge. Apart from the firing mechanism and the feeder, anything you slap around the barrel is, thusly, mere accessories. Fancy stuff that may improve the gun's reliability or targeting capabilities (see the cross-section posted earlier), but is in no way necessary for its basic function. To actually make such a gun unwieldable for normal people, you'd probably have to make Space Marine bolters shoot cannonballs or something.

Also, I'm just going to point out that Dark Heresy's Inquisitor's Handbook already includes a gun that fires stolen Astartes bolt rounds in a basic weapon usable by normal humans (the Angelus). "Back then", the justification for characters not being allowed Marine-grade bolter rounds was just that they're illegal. Turns out that, apparently, the entire Imperium is just too dumb to replicate this idea and equip even its elite Inquisitors with it.

There's really not that much to discuss. That Marine gear always has to one-up the human stuff (even where it comes to Terminator armour) was obviously a design decision that had nothing to do with realism nor existing fluff. I ask only that people would realize this, and that they do not have to attempt to justify it, as any potential explanation can be dismantled rather easily by other explanations supporting GW's opinion on this subject … getting us back to where we started.

As I said - interpretations and personal preferences.

Lynata said:

To be precise the Angelus Bolt Carbine is a highly illegal rifle that can house a total of 3 astartes calibre bolt shells that have to be stolen more or less individually as so called 'blind shells' before the Adeptus Mechanicus gets their hands on them.

Lynata said:

Lynata said:

You always claim that there is no such thing as WH40K canon, so GW opinion is no more valid than anyone else's.

JuankiMan said:

But yes, you are right - hence the bit about preferences.

Musclewizard: /salute

HTMC said:

borithan said:

It's a mixture between inadequate grips, balancing problems for a regular human and overal design. Aiming a gun you can't grip correctly, that you find oddly proportioned for your frame and that you have to twist your head uncomfortably to look down the sights must be extremely awkward. On the other hand, I would give Space Marines a -10 penalty for using "mortal" weapons (it's easier for an adult to use a toy gun than for a kid to use a real gun) because it must be quite awkward firing a gun too tiny for your hands.

WittyDroog said:

In my random thoughts about reunifying bolters I had considered giving Space Marines Proven (3) to represent the higher level of quality control with their weapons and choice of ammunition.

Still feel -30 is too much. That is a big penalty.

I'd like to re-unify the crafting a little, myself…

For Bolters, The differences could be covered by near anything except damage and still make sense. Even then, Astartes Bolt Rounds could be more powerful, but will be just as effective in a Garm-Pattern Boltpistol wielded by your friendly neighborhood commissar if he had to reload off of a marine's supplies. But it would be a seperate bonus from the weapon in itself.

Astartes Bolters could be more reliable, perhaps slightly more accurate, and have higher capacity and rate of fire. Furthermore you don't need it that much more powerful if you consider that, really, they're standard issue to marines. A Bolter is to them is as the Lasgun to a guardsman.

If the average Astartes Bolter has one higher in its RoF, twice the ammunition and the ammunition obtained is +1Dam/+1Pen over the standard, they have a basic, standard-issue weapon more powerful than what to anyone else is a rare, prestigious sign of authority and power.

JuankiMan said:

Black Crusade also cites that its difficult for a Chaos Space Marine, wearing power armor, to stick his finger through the trigger guard of many human weapons (we said a tech use check could fix this, but luckily the CSM players didn't give a hoot about human weapons)

Generally speaking an Astartes grade bolt weapon will be different from a human grade one in the following ways:
It will be of an overall larger design, as it is made to be wielded by superhumans in power armour.

It will be of a more rugged design and so better suited to combat attachments and being used as a club in melee.

It will have superior firing mechanisms, giving it better range or rate of fire or any other mechanical difference.

It will have a larger magazine as an Astartes will barely notice the weight of it.

It will have a machine spirit of superior ability, allowing it to interface with Astartes armour and give better performance in the field of battle.

It will be standardized for the chapter that made it, from minor things such as the iconography and colouration down to the clip types, ejection ports, muzzle style, which attachments it can be fitted with etc.

All of these things could alter any number of both mechanical and fluff effects that are NOT damage on the boltgun profile. I really don't understand why people feel the need to dredge up ancient source material when it has been made abundantly clear that FFG are sanctioned by GW in everything they publish (Or else it wouldn't get to print!) and so the 'canon' argument doesn't work to try and change something you don't like.

The issue herein doesn't lie with the boltgun being too weak, just as plasma weapons weren't too weak in Deathwatch - instead the isssue lies with another weapon being too powerful. In Deathwatch the bolgtun completely overshadowed any plasma weaponry, and in Only War the common lasgun and its variants are starting to do the same to boltguns.

Kasatka said:

Some players simply prefer playing in an environment they are used to, rather than having to change their way of thinking for these games. Wasn't this the point of roleplaying in this setting, anyways? To play what we've grown to love?

The increased gap propagated in FFG's version of the franchise is, quite simply, "different" - and it unnecessarily invalidates a number of interesting and potentially useful (for plot purposes) background aspects as collateral damage. Moreover, it reduces compatibility between characters and prevents crossover campaigns like, again, we have read about in the material we've grown up with.

As mentioned before, it's a matter of personal preferences. I do understand why some people prefer Marines being even more awesome than they are in GW's world, but at the same time it should not be hard to understand why some people are opposed to this notion.

But yes, "dredging up ancient source material" does not really serve as "evidence", given that there is no canon in this franchise. I merely mentioned it because people came up with with that theory about massive recoil as an explanation to defend FFG's change, and I wanted to make it clear that if this is the reason, then it has simply been newly made up as well. It's one thing to simply prefer one version over the other, but claiming that GW's idea is unreasonable is something I did not want to let stand.

Both versions of bolt weaponry are equally valid, and which one you prefer has less to do with realism than with simply how powerful and "epic" you want your Space Marines to be compared to anyone else. Nothing more, nothing less.