As I understand it, cover protects the body parts behind it. So firing a rifle would leave head and both arms exposed. Would firing a pistol one handed only leave the head and one arm exposed? What about staying down and blind firing? What action would it take to change the degree to which I am behind cover?

Also, I am going to be playing the team bodyguard. Assassin seems the better choice, but is there any benefit to going guardsman? What are they?

Thank you for the help

You've got the cover part right.

There are rules for "Spray and Pray", basically staying down and shooting around cover/corner without aiming. This confers a -30 to your BS test. The benefit is that you are completely concealed behind cover. A fun way to use a flamer, perhaps

As for the Assassin v Guardsman, I'd say as a Bodyguard the Guardsman is a better fit. The Assassin specializes in dealing damage, but can't take much himself. The Guardsman on the other hand gets cheap toughness and wounds advances, and can become almost indestructible. Kit him out with some heavy weapons, and he will still do alot of damage and/or be able to do crowd control with suppressive fire and/or area-of-effect attacks.

It is unfunny how much better Assassin is compared to Guardsman. While yes technically the guardsman can tank better than the Assassin, it isnt a huge advantage considering the assassins amazing dodge.

The heavy weapons advantage isnt a huge bonus considering its a table full of those advances of which you can only really use one at a time. Having 5 different HWT is usually pointless since you dont tend to come up against heavy weapons that you can steal all that often and you often cant take Heavy Weapons with you when doing investigation. Also Assassins do get those HWT but just a bit later on.

Assassin basically only misses out on Crushing blow which is a nice talent I will admit but it can usually be overcome with gear, They basically get everything else Guardsman gets usually cheaper and earlier.

Kaihlik

Combat-Wise the Assassin is stronger, yes. Though we play a somewhat "fluffy" adventure where we use a complete different method of requisitioning equipement. To explain it would take to long but basically we do not earn money or buy wargear. It is given by the inquisition based upon the individuals rank as his achievements. There are not strict rules for it but it allows everyone several options of gear he can take and with this in mind an assassisn is pretty much limited to body-gloves, silent weapons or gear that requires finesse and stuff though a guardsman is more likely to get the nasty ranged weapons and espacialy heave weapons in combinations with good armor. If you allow everyone to take everything yea, the guy witht he better advancement tables is stronger but I would never allow an Assassin in Carapce/Power Armor using a power fist for this is no assassin anymore - it is just min-maxing.

I have to side with Smeg on this one. The assassin's dodge is a great boon, but you are limited by needing to use a reaction. A guardsman outfitted with good armor, more wounds, and cheap toughness advances is more likely to survive a horde of enemies. A man wielding a Grenade Launcher is also a higher priority target than someone wielding a hunting rifle, and thus draw 'aggro' away from the rest of the party.

Don't get me wrong, Assassins are great fun to play, and have the potential for high-killing power combined with great style and finesse!

But OP mentioned the role as Bodyguard, and in that role I believe Guardsman to be a better fit.

Especially combined with the "protect ally" dodge rule from Inquisitors Handbook which will allow the guardsman to swap places with the person s/he is designated to protect.

Of couse, this expanded rule will also work for the assassin, but the guardsman, as mentioned is usually better capable of soaking damage.

I don't think it worth overlooking that there are a number of damage based bonuses that Guardsmen get compared to the Assassin.

For example in melee, crushing blow and cheap strength advances. They might be down reactions and cheap agility but should be able to quickly put out more damage which might be important.

And for shooting, while Assassins do get heavy weapons training and bulging biceps it's very expensive (to meet the Str minimum in many cases) so the equivalent guardsmen will be spending a fraction of the xp cost to use that auto-cannon halfway effectively and that's basically compares very favourably with an assassin sniper and a finese shooting talents.

Does this forum contain any houserules to give some edge for the gurdsman? such as giving greater armors a penalty to sneaking, which guardsmen don't do that much and are able to wear huge armors with no further thoughts into it. This could make assassins use more lighter armors…

well - if you want to use the rules for size (not specifically for power armour) on pg 332 of the core book, hulking gives -10 to concealment (which is quite a big part of sneaking)

also in the Minitorum Tabella (Power Armour 3) created for Dark Reign by Luddite (I can Upload it and post a link if you like) there are many more power armour types, a few of which have the combersome trait - which gives -10-30 to all agility tests which would include concealment, slient move and shadowing