I'm having trouble figuring this out: How much ammunition does comes as standard issue? I notice the default ammunition doesn't have a Req. value, and it says standard ammunition is in "sufficient" supply. I'm not overly worried that my idiot players will load themselves up with the maximum amount of bolt shells possible, but for the sake of "realism", what would be appropriate?

In the Errata FAQ, three reloads for each weapon is recommended. For a weapon with a Fire Selector, the rule of thumb that I use is three total reloads, so nine magazines.

you are really kind to your player as stated my player have 3 reload, the fire selector is a weapon option permitting to clip 3 reload not a 3 reload size clip.

But yes the errata give those number. The alternative is free unlimited basic ammo.

Usually our group runs an "effectively unlimited" amount of "reserve" ammunition store of bolter shells, but each marine is limited to 6 magazines (the standard alotment for US military personel in combat zones). It is possible for our players to run out of ammunition in the "thick of it" and be bingo ammo until he returns to the staging area, T-hawk, vehicle, or other area where the "reserve" ammo is stored.

This gives the players some things to think about when playing but at the same time allows them to recover in the event they do run out of ammo.

Non-standard ammo for special weapons is another thing entirely. Missiles, heavy bolter, plasma, melta, and other types of ammo other than .75 bolter is of totally finite supply and any "reserves" must be purchased with requisition.

I see the FAQ suggests three reloads per weapon, so three it is.

Would it be unfair to rule tha Fire Selector does not alter the clip size, but allows the wielder to mix and select ammunition of three different types? It seems a bit odd that a Bolter with a clip size of 28 would hold 9-10 rounds of three different types of ammunition, but on the other hand, it is perhaps a bit over the top with 84 rounds of ammunition in the same weapon - One would assume that the standard clip size is considered optimal for most reasons!

The point of the Fire Selector is that it lets you load three different clips into the gun at the same time, and fire from any of the three as desired. With a Fire Selector, players should never have to mix clips in that way.

As the FAQ, yes, it should be 3 reloads. Extrapolating that to mean 3 "full" reloads for something with a Fire Selector is ingenious, and by no means sounds unreasonable. Functionally, ammo should be unlimited if you ask me, except when the GM needs it to be low for dramatic purposes.

Well. You got me convinced. I don't like it, but I guess I can work in drama and excitement without making my players worry about the thrill that is keeping track of ammunition.

My players have never had to reload yet, apart from one time when their weapons jammed.

No, seriously. We've had three missions, and because 3/4 are specced for melee combat, we've never had a reload. I could've had tension, but I haven't had the opportunity. Sigh.

The closest they got was when they ran out of grenades because they kept throwing them at every combat encounter once they realised frags couldn't penetrate their armour and didn't damage their cohesion if they were in Solo Mode when they did this.

I'm pretty sure that "three reloads" means "three clips," not "nine clips in the case of a weapon with a fire selector."

Which gives bolters about the same number of rounds of use as a heavy bolter with backpack -- probably not a coincidence.

bogi_khaosa said:

A standard bolter magazine contains 28 bolts. Multiplied by three magazines, that's 84 bolts. Meanwhile, the heavy bolter with a backpack ammo supply has 250 bolts, leaving a bolter with only three magazines with roughly 1/3 the ammunition of the HB. Now, back to the standard bolter. Multiply that 84 by three again- nine magazines, in other words- leaves you with a result of 252, just two more than the heavy weapon. Further, looking at it from a realistic standpoint, US troops (not trying to use Americans as the standard, it's just that I know US military better than any other) deploy on standard patrols with six 30 round magazines plus one in the weapon- that's 210 rounds. A front line troop deploying with only 84 rounds for his primary weapon is asking for trouble, unless his primary is a heavy weapon, in which case it depends on if we're talking SAW-equivalent or anti-tank.

Gaire said:

I meant "rounds of action," not "rounds fired." The HB is always firing at full auto at 10 or 6 a pop, depending on what weapon stats you are using..

Anyway, I'm 99% sure that the idea was NOT "pay 2 Req for a fire selector and triple your ammo."

Well, considering that the most common users of the standard bolter get fire selectors for free, and FFG has stated that effectively infinite ammo is a perfectly acceptable playstyle, I'm fine with giving my Tacticals nine mags over three. And sorry for the confusion over the usage of "rounds".

Gaire said:

Depends on play style.

bogi_khaosa said:

True enough. Different strokes for different folks. A swift one at shoulder height typically suffices, though.

I've never had a single player run out of ammunition. I've never had a single player go through all three clips in his fire selector.

Be it 9 clips or 3, they've never needed more than 2.

BYE

It seems the fire selector effectively adds two extra clips to the weapon, which is different from expanding the actual clip size by x3. A "reload" in this sense should therefore be a single clip, i.e. 28 bolt shells, not 84.

It seems natural to assume that the weapon is fully loaded, and with three reloads this comes to 168 bolt shells. Add in three reloads for his bolt pistol and the Space Marine is actually carrying two fully loaded weapons and six individual clips. Which is quite close to that of the aforementioned U.S. soldier.

Looking at a space marine model, there aren't a lot of pockets he can carry stuff in. I can more readily believe that he is carrying 3 plus 3 clips extra compared to 9 plus 3 clips.

-K

kjakan said:

The problem with this is that fire selectors can only be used on bolt weapons, meaning that if you choose a flamer you have cut your ammunition down by something like 80%.

I don't follow.

-K

Straight off the bat the mission Extraction in the main rule book (p383) says:

'The player characters should be equipped as per a standard
Kill-team mission, and in addition each will be carrying a
double load for their main weapon. They will also possess a
map-image of the area viewed from orbit just after the crash,
pinpointing the crash site, and a one-use emergency-beacon
transmitter to enable their retrieval.'

Until the errata it didn't actually qualify what a standard load for a weapon is. And this is 5 hour long mission (with fairly intense combat).

Sooo, I interperate this as a standard load, of 3 reloads, is bare minimum. What you would get for all additional weapons, or what you would have with your main weapon for a trip to the shops in bad neighbourhood. Your main weapon would have double (or more) in any intense or lengthy combat.

kjakan said:

I mean you're going to wind up with c.180 shots for a bolter vs. 30 or so shots for a flamer.

The shot selector is not a way to spend a small amount of requisition and have effectively unlimited ammo, it is a way of using specialised ammo more effectively. For example if you buy some metal storm and some kraken rounds in addition to your standard bolts, you would either have to map out exactly what order the shells are in the clip (like in the old Inquisitor game), but this is a nightmare to keep track of and highly ineffective in combat. The alternative is to have each ammo type in its own clip and keep swapping clips when they are needed. "Oh no a hive tyrant, cover me while i spend a turn faffing around with my magazines guys!" is not something a marine should ever be heard saying.
So then we come to the shot selector - what it does is modify the receiver of the bolt weapon to accept 3 magazines side by side and at the flick of a switch, similar to that found on any modern firearm with a safe/single/burst/auto switch, you can change between ammo types. Thus you can keep 1 clip of standard bolts for regular usage and 2 of specially bought ammo for each mission in the bolt weapon at all times. This means if you had a standard load of 3 clips, you'd have 1 in the gun and 2 spare. Double loadout would mean 1 in the gun and 5 spare. Either way your specialised ammo is above and beyond the standard loadout.

@Kasatka

Still though, the Fire Selector does allow the weapon to contain about 3x more ammo than a normal variant of the same weapon. Nothing says you must load specialty ammo in the extra capacity.

As far as increasing how much is "standard issue" sure, it is cheesy to call it that. I still stand by a belief though that running out of ammo is inconsistent with the themes of Deathwatch, and thus should not be a long term issue (unless thematically needed for the pacing of the game).

bogi_khaosa said:

I don't think that's a fair comparison: Brother Alcatraz has a bolter with a fire selector and 168 bolt shells and he can make somewhere between 42 attacks (all full-automatic 4-round bursts) and 168 attacks (all single-shot attacks). Brother Blackgate has a flamer and 24 shots (fully loaded weapon and three releoads), i.e. somewhere between 14% and 57% of the attack capacity of the other guy.

However, Brother Alcatraz will have a greater challenge dealing with multiple individual enemies than Brother Blackgate does: In any situation where the former wants to affect multiple targets he'll need to resort to using Full Auto attacks and hope for sufficient degrees of success, whereas he latter is free to move into a position to make attacks against an optimal number of targets

My point is that there is a difference between ammo capacity, attack capacity and target capacity.

-K

kjakan said:

Correspondingly, Brother Blackgate will be completely incapable of shooting targets at any appreciable range, and Brother Shawshank is completely out of luck with his plasma gun..