Hello,

Me&my friends have decided to finally Dark Heresy a try (After many years of 3.5 D&D) and I'm rolling a Sister of Battle (Inquisitor's Handbook).

I'm trying to decide what basic weapon training to pick for my Schola Progenium background (Las or SP).

I've been looking trough the books and it seems to me there's just nothing to make SP worth using over a Hellgun(which seem reasonably cheap and accessible). Most special kinds of ammo are either worse than a Hellgun or are available to bolters as well. Only think I'd see myself as missing is the Executioner Shotgun Ammo. So is there something I'm missing that would make SP a better choice than Las in the long run?

Also, since until rank 4 (when I can look into dual wielding) at least I'll most likely be using some sort of rifle, I'm also looking into sidearms. I'd like to hear what do you guys like to use as an affordable, usable with Quick Draw and in melee (so pistol), cheap ammo sidearm? Atm I'm leaning most toward Puritan-14, since it gets both autofire and a 1 shot shotgun mode (so I can use Executioner Shells if I really want to).

PS: So far we're using Dark Heresy only until we get a hang of the game, so no access to Rogue Trader/Deathwatch/etc. ammo/weapons

buy a long las with red-dot laser. With the accurate errata, it's really great weapon to make people into blackened swiss cheese.

sorry I talked for the las weapons xD

PnPgamer said:

Well, siniping wasn't exactly my intetion with this char (was going more toward autofire&heavy weapons later on).

However, it's my impression that sniping is the only field where SP beats Las. Only Accurate basic Las is the Long Las; the hunting rifle is pretty much equivalent in everything but clip size (slightly worse damage with regular ammo, slightly better with either dumdum or manstoppers) but there also the Nomad which blows the Long Las out of the water in any field but clip size.

Well, with a hot shot or over heated charge for las, pistols are still viable. Granted there is more sp pistols, but the main question is are you using that sisters just request gear / ammo and receive it depending on her rank? If yes bolt pistols become the obvious answer as the thrones per bolt round becomes obsolete and far outstrip sp & las, being tearing, explosive and having high damage to boot.

Louisp said:

Nope, I have to buy stuff just like everybody else, so bolters will most likely be just for special occasions.

The reason I'm leaning more toward SP as far as sidearms go is autofire. So far I'm somehwat undecided between Fury (decent all around, only Las pistol with autofire), Hellpistol (no autofire but good damage per shot), Hecuter (good damage and reliable) Carnodon (epic range for a pistol, good damage per shot but no autofire) and Puritan-14(considering this over Hecuter only for added shotgun mode).

ok you wanna know what advantages a solid projectile gun has over a hellgun? let's look at the hellgun for a minute. 1d10+4, 3 pen. on average each hit is going to be doing about 9 damage and let's say the average mook enemy has 3 toughness bonus wears guard flak and just stands around in no cover shooting from 30 meters away. so that's 5 damage every hit. not bad and since you're probably shooting semi auto and your're a ballistic skill character so you have like 40 bs, at this distance you are going to get +10 for semi auto and short range and hit an average of two times. 10 damage more or less every round, now we're talkin'

ok now consider saaaay, a regular old autogun but with manstopper rounds. i'm not gonna mathhammer it all out but in the same situation that's 4 damage per hit with 3 pen and all. now since we're shooting full auto so every degree is an extra hit, same situation, 10% better odds of hitting so on average 3 hits for about 12 damage. ok

more hits on average means more potential for critical hits plus potentially more damage. one possible drawback is manstoppers don't grow on trees and full auto eats bullets for breakfast but still 5 thrones buys you 6 manstoppers so fully loaging your gun is going to cost you 25 where as a hellgun capicitor cost 50 thrones, is only going to be consuming 3 shots per round and has 40 shots. fair enough. that makes it a much more cost effective weapon for supressing enemies but you could load your autogun with regular dirt cheap solid slugs and supress heretics all day if suppression is all you want to do. plus dat' reload time.

and if that's enough math hammer for you fluff wise. that is to say in character n'stuff, hellguns require giant backpacks if you so choose which makes them unconcealable. the gun has to be wired to the pack which some clever cultist could snip or hack or slice or any number dirty tricks. all the while with an obnoxious grin on his and the gm's face i'm sure.

of course capicators can be recharged so you only ever need to buy two at the most whilst during his career the autogunner is going to be dropping a fair dime on man stoppers.

so to boil this all down. autogun does more damage on average in edition to potentially a very great amount of damage. but it also potentially jams five rounds in a row and the party psyker potentially summons a bloodletter the first time he attempts to cast healer.

Well, the D'laku Hellgun gets autofire, but it's quite hard to get. And in the end it is comparrable to an Armageddon with manstoppers.

Fair point about the backpack and the reload time though.

in my experience as a player and a gm reloading in battle is almost never a problem but jamming can grind your odds of success during a firefight into the dirt. so there's that for consideration. have you and your friends actually played yet?

Sean Miller said:

Nope, we're still discussing chars atm, campaign is due to start after the holidays.

well I hope have fun bro. remember to take cover, wear a helmet and shoot the psyker

Since you are playing a SoB from the inquisitor Handbook, I believe you can get one of the weapon training for rather cheap XP, so you can end with both, but let's say you're bound to only use one….

Rifle wise, autogun got go the most feats: can be silenced, given special ammo, fire selector (so you got to go throught 3 mags before haivng to realod) autofire, and all that jazz. The real disadventage is that you are dependent to a degree on logistics; After you fire your last bullet, that autogun is just a fancy looking club, so you'd better be on a world where you can get bullets (and even then- you'd better be where the bullets are, not 100 miles into the jungle)

Las on the other hand seems weak; no auto-fire, not alot of special ammo, can't be silenced. BUT from the get-go it is reliable, so jamming is less of a problem, and as long as there is some light source around you, you can recharge your charge pack and theoredically never run out of ammo for your lasgun, making them a must on worlds like feudal or feral, or any other mission that requires you to be away from civilization and/or logistical support

If you want to go las pistols, get some Mark IV command las pistols: they have 70m range, S/2/-, Reliable AND Accurate, ,pretty much the most bad ass las pistol you can get your hands on for 150 Thrones too, so not that bad a price as well.

My Cleric was death on two legs with his Armageddon autogun, though I think it was less because of his choice of an SP weapon and more because he named his weapon "Suzy". Named weapons tend to be luckier, I guess.

"awww who's a good guuurl?! you are my wittwe suuzyyy, youuu aaare! *brrbrbrbrb*"

but anyway, you can always bring extra clips for the autogun so that you will not run out of ammo immediatly, disabling a bit of the disadvantage of logistics.

Boss Gitsmasha said:

So name your weapon and drive a red tank?

Thanks to Sean Miller's analysis of ROF issues (which I hadn't given much thought before) think I'll be going with SP in the end.

Armageddon autoguns with manstoppers are signficantly better than regular hellguns and on par with D'laku hellguns but easier to get and reliable. Ammo might be an issue, but with the cash I'd spend on a D'laku hellgun and 2 capacitors I can get an Armageddon and 40 clips of manstoppers. Additionally, I'm willing to bet there's a much better chance to get SP ammo than hellgun capacitors off dead opponents. Additionally SP basic gives me access to shotguns, which are excellent for point blank fighting.

So, what do you think about going for an Armageddon (with a Vanaheim or standard shotgun as backup) and a Mark IV Las pistol as a sidearm?

Either use a Armogedon (don't forget wiht Fire selector for the extra clip space) or a PA shot gun (to be upgraded to Combat at a later date) with spechility shells as your Long Arm, as for Side Arms go for a Hand Canon (or Carnodon) & Mono Sword Combo. for a starting character you will be able to afford one or the other. all three are very servicable and easy to brake in to picking up the others.

If you're not using a flintlock musket with affixed primitive bayonet, you're doing it wrong. People talking about things like accuracy , armor-penetration , reliability , psssh. All you need is a good ol' Napoleonic bangstick.

Regarding special ammo, I've found references to Solid Slugs and Expander Rounds in other gun threads. Where are those from?

Boss Gitsmasha said:

on feudal world got to use what you can, at least a bang stick out bangs a bolas.

LordBlades said:

Expanders are from Rogue Trader, Solid Slugs are from Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions. They are Scarce and Common, respectively.

your SoB should be packing "Inferno" Shells for their Shotties anywway, Puerge some Heritics & Muties in the trud Big ""E" way

also hand flamers could fit into the description.

picking up Flame Tallants is a bit of a ways off for starting characters, 200t a pop for a two shot weapon, you'd need a brace of them to see out a fight, or 1000t for a Serphim Hand Flamer, Shotgun + Inferno shells or Blazer Shells a cheaper and easer way to get the Clensing power of Flame in your hands.

Drop Bear 2.0 said:

Isn't Inferno shells heretic purging done better via bolter?

Regardless, I like the way you're thinking

Bolters and their Ammo are both hard to come by and expencive, becides Starting Charaters don't have the nessery Weapons Talants to use them letalone aford the Guns in the first place, nore the ongoing income to fill a clip.

Bolt weapons aren't for starting characters in the first place, they're supposed to be mid-to-late level weapons. Starting characters will lucky if they get a grenade launcher, let alone a bolter.