Hi there. I would like to ask you, the venerable forum, a question about the Dual Shot talent. It states, that you can, as a Full Action, fire two shots, on one BS test, on the same target. I want to play a metallican gunslinger and as such, shooting peoples faces off with dual revolvers would greatly please me But, if i would like to shoot two shots in my turn, i dont have to have this talent (one shot, half action). I even dont have to dual wield the pistols. What is the purpose of this talent?

Sorry for a long question, first time forum asking and english is my second language.

The first problem you're hitting with your idea is that you actually cannot make two standard attacks in a round. Yes, they are both half actions, but there is wording in the rules that you can only take one of any given action per turn.

To fire both weapons, you're looking at the penalties from Two-Weapon Wielding and the Multiple Attacks combat action.

Dual Shot has a specific use against enemies with a high toughness/armour, but a low ability to dodge. It lets pistol class weapons deal enough damage to let players use that instead of carrying around a different high powered weapon for other encounters.

I would say it has a place in your combat options, but you shouldn't expect to be doing it all the time. If the enemy has a higher dodge chance, its better to make two shots, and hopefully eat thir reaction.

So, . If i shoot with one pistol (say, stub revolver), half action, i can only make another half action action with that pistol, and not with another pistol?

No, if you make a Standard Attack (half action) with any weapon, you cannot make any further Standard Attacks that turn.

Theres a reason we have the Half Move and the Full Move action (or really, they're variants of the same action). You don't make 2 Half Moves.

Aw man, that means that we have been misinterpreting the rules. If i could ask one last favour, could you write me the page number concerning this aspect? I am browsing thourh my copy and i am unable to find it.

Page 188, Actions -> Half Action -> Last sentance, "Note that you may not take the same Half Action twice."

Sadly it is kind of a big deal in the rules, things do work around that mechanic.

Thank you very much for your help

As long as i have your attention, i have another question. I ´d like to ask you how does a game, with mentioned rule about half actions, feels like? Isnt it a camp fast? You know, as soon as you are in a cover, only thing to do is aim and shoot?

The main thing to realize is that in a world where you can only make a single standard attack means taht any given attack could possibly be dodged. This is more of a 1v1 sort of issue, but consider it.

This means the king of the field is anything with a rate of fire, blast, or melee with either dual wielding or Swift/Lightning Attack.

Going to cover is by all means an excellent and necessary thing, but I would hardly say its a camp-fest. Things like Supressing Fire become quite useful as well.

Cover keeps you alive. But it does you no good when the crazy guy with flamer comes into range. It does no good when the other crazy guy with the synthmuscle and eviscerator charges through the smoke to tie you up (and chop you down) in melee.

Sure, a "pure" firefight with "normal" guns will tend to see people staying still and in cover, exchanging shots. But even so there is room for tactical maneouvers. Flank your enemy to catch them in your sights where they have no cover. Sneak around and catch them Unaware.

As for your gunslinger, you can pick up Two-weapon Wielder, Ambidextrous and Gunslinger to negate those pesky penalties to your BS tests, and blast Full-auto shots from two pistols at once. With Independent Targeting you can shoot at several people at once. So the Dual Shot is less useful to you than to many other classes without easy access to all those talents.

The main benefit of Dual Shot, as has been pointed out, is that you only subtract the targets TB once form the combined total damage of the two guns. (armour is subtracted from both shots, as normal). This was a change introduced in the Errata, which you should make sure to read

Yep! Never underestimate the powah of duel-wielding fully-automatic weapons with independant targeting!

Just last saturday, near the end of my group's Dark Heresy session, my Untouchable scum wiped 4 guys in a single turn with her dual autopistols. The +30 she got from full-auto blast+ close range allowed her to hit on an 85. She scored 6 degrees of success with one of the guns and 4 on the other, for 10 shots altogether; 3 shots for two of the guys and 2 shots for the other 2. The jaws of my whole group dropped, except for our munchkin psyker, who just kind of gnashed his teeth for a few minutes. He hasn't even begun to start crying yet though- ****'s gonna get real once I pick up two flame-pistols and hip-shooting.

Dual-shot, as has been mentioned is great for fighting high toughness units, like orks , who are in general such a pain to deal with; that TB8 is just brutal against those of us who use rapid-fire-low-DPS weapons.. It becomes a lot easier to deal with them however when your two attacks that would normally do 7 and 9 damage after damage reduction combine to do 16 though!

I would advise however, that if you want to use dual-shot you invest in weapons that deal good burst damage, rather than weapons like autopistols which whittle-away wounds over time. Dual flamer-pistols, melta-pistols or handcannons are great weapons that optimize the usefulness of dual-shot. If you use autopistols, I'd advise getting handcannons, since both weapons use the same ammo.