So I don't want to sound dense but I do have some questions about how this all works.

RoF: So obviously this is how many rounds are expended for whatever firing mode the weapon uses.

Penetration: The penetration potential of the projectile/bolt/slug/whatever.

Heres the Scenario:

Schlomo the Ganger is a bad bad man and deserves to die. Hestrolls into town unawares of Jojo, Zippy, & Fred hiding out with their guns ready and waiting. Schlomo isn't very bright but he does have this uncanny knack of being able to soak up loads and loads of damage for no other reason than this is my scenario and he must be able to live through the 3 acolytes shooting at him. As he is busy digging grox poop out of the sole of his boot, he isn't going to get a chance to dodge... because I don't want him to dodge.

Schlomo is kinda tough and has a Toughness Bonus of 4.

With that said, Lets say Schlomo the Ganger is wearing armor which provides AP of 2 to his entire body. (I.E. I don't want to deal with hit locations at the moment)

Then you have:

Jojo the Acolyte with his Autopistol (S/-/6) 1d10+2 Pen 0

Zippy the Acolyte with his Bolt Pistol (S/2/-) 1d10+5 Pen 4

Fred the Acolyte with his Autopistol (S/-/6) 1d10+2 Pen 0

So here is how I THINK it is supposed to work but I would like to hear from those who have first hand experience with DH.

Jojo's Shot:

Jojo goes first and decides to unload with a full auto burst from his Autogun. He marks off 6 rounds of ammo from his clip and rolls. He rolls and gets 3 degrees of success. Now as I understand it that means 3 bullets hit. Each one does 1d10+2 damage modified for toughness and armor. Lets suppose that Jojo rolls (3x) 5's on his damage dice which would equate to 7 damage per dice. So each dice would be reduced by 2 points for the Armor and 4 points for the Toughness? That would mean 1 point from each gets through?

Total Damage Dealt by Jojo: 3 Points

Zippy's Shot:

Zippy goes second and decides a Semi Auto Burst is his best chance of taking Schlomo down. Zippy rolls the bones and because he is super amazing he gets 5 degrees of success. Since his bolt pistol only has a RoF of 2, he only gets 2 damage dice. Lets say all of the planets are strangely aligned and he ALSO roll's 5's on each of his D10's. That means each damage dice does 10 Points but because they are at a higher penetration than the armor can resist, there is NO reduction to the damage based upon armor. Schlomo can only reduce the incomming damage based upon his toughness score which takes each dice down to 6.

Total Damage Dealt by Zippy: 12 Points

Fred's Shot:

Fred decides he is also going to go for a full auto burst from his Autopistol. Fred is not as super cool as his companions and only just barely hits. He only gets 1 damage dice. Fred rolls the bones and gets a 4 on his damage dice... Tough luck Fred. The Armor immediately saps 2 from that roll and the other 4 get absorbed by Schlomo's toughness bonus.

Total Damage Dealt by Fred: 0 (Fail)

Questions:

1. Do each of Zippy's damage dice get reduced by the AP of the armor?

2. Does Schlomo take fatigue in addition to the lethal damage he sustained?

3. What if Schlomo had been behind some sort of cover and the Acolytes still managed to get the same number of successes? Lets say Schlomo was standing behind AP 2 cover and for all intents and purposes. Does this further reduce the damage done by Jojo and Freds shots?

4. Does Zippy also have his damage reduced by Schlomo's 2 AP cover or does it just blow through because it isn't enough to reduce it below the weapons Pen?

5. Does the cover get destroyed in Jojo's first barrage of fire?

6. Am I asking too many dumb questions?

Thanks

First, a minor correction. Jojo's 3 DoS would mean 3 ADDITIONAL hits, not a total of 3. (Ie, a roll with no DoS is still a hit, but just with one bullet. 1 DoS ups this to 2, and so forth). So Jojo would score 4 wounds, but the rest of your calculations are correct.

Then to your questions:

1: Yes. Armor is very nice

2: No. Once Schlomo is down to 0 wounds, he will start taking critical hits. Some of these cause fatigue damage, but this will be specified in the text.

3: Yes. Cover is very nice. It works just like armor, can cover some or all body locations, reduces damage and is bypassed with Penetration. The only difference between cover and armor is that cover can be destroyed. (well, and you usually cannot wear it and walk around in it). Edit: Also, if a target is completely hidden by cover, you take a -30% modifier to shoot at him.

4: Zippy's high penetration bursts right through both cover and armor. Ouch. However, had the cover been better (ie given AP 3), it would have reduced damage like for the other shooters.

5: Hmmm. Have to check the rules, but I believe that it looses 1 point of AP whenever it recieves a hit that deals more damage than its total AP. Edit: Checked it, and yes: Whenever a shot penetrates cover (in your scenario it would need to score more than 2 DMG) its AP is reduced by one. So, the first two shots by Jojo would disintegrate the cover. (Note: The shot doesnt have to wound the character hiding behind cover, just penetrate the cover. So even if armor and toughness results in no injury, the cover is still damaged)

6: Nope

Don't forget that Bolt weapons all have the Tearing special (see errata)

First, a minor correction. Jojo's 3 DoS would mean 3 ADDITIONAL hits, not a total of 3. (Ie, a roll with no DoS is still a hit, but just with one bullet. 1 DoS ups this to 2, and so forth). So Jojo would score 4 wounds, but the rest of your calculations are correct.

To elaborate on this: If you have a 50 BS (after modifiers) and roll a 50-41, this is called a standard success. You hit your enemy once. For every ten points below your BS, you gain an additional Degree of Success whicht translates to another hit.

3: Yes. Cover is very nice. It works just like armor, can cover some or all body locations, reduces damage and is bypassed with Penetration. The only difference between cover and armor is that cover can be destroyed. (well, and you usually cannot wear it and walk around in it). Edit: Also, if a target is completely hidden by cover, you take a -30% modifier to shoot at him.

This "cover some or all body locations" may be rather important - as your hits with an automatic weapon start wandering after the second one (there's a table in the core book around page 190), you may manage to hit a target behind cover even if your initial hit indicates you shoot at the cover. This actually works out so that you're often better off with Spray'n'Pray than with called shots as long as the target's arms and head are not in cover (highly unlikely considering the target usually wants to shoot back)

To wit:

A Called Shot has a -20 modifier (assuming you don't have the appropriate talents). An opponent going for a single called shot can use his second half action for Aiming for a +10. This results in a net modifier of -10 for definitely hitting a target in an uncovered location.

A full auto burst has a straight +20 modifier.

All in all, this results in (assuming the same die roll for both the single and the FA shot) 30 points difference between the two. If the FA guy has rolled less than two degrees of success (30 points under his BS), the Single Shot guy wouldn't even have hit, so it's irrelevant whether the FA has pierced the cover - he can at worst have the same amount of success (i.e. none). If he is 30 points below his BS, both would have hit - but the single shot guy has exactly one hit on an uncovered location while the FA guy may have more (three assuming a head shot, three assuming an arm shot and two assuming a body shot, with only leg shots producing a mere one hit). Of course, conservation of ammo also has its benefits and certain upgrades and talents may push this further into the direction of single shots, but the general solution to cover is More Dakka!

5: Hmmm. Have to check the rules, but I believe that it looses 1 point of AP whenever it recieves a hit that deals more damage than its total AP. Edit: Checked it, and yes: Whenever a shot penetrates cover (in your scenario it would need to score more than 2 DMG) its AP is reduced by one. So, the first two shots by Jojo would disintegrate the cover. (Note: The shot doesnt have to wound the character hiding behind cover, just penetrate the cover. So even if armor and toughness results in no injury, the cover is still damaged)

Of course, that can be considered... dubious, especially with weapons like the Needle rifle - it has a chance to penetrate for example Sandbags (armour 8) and I consider it valid that it does, but it's not exactly likely to punch a hole that is in any way useful to further ammunition. The rare psyker power Common Sense should be exercised on this one.

Thanks guys... good information.

I wanted to make sure I was doing the calculations correctly... Looks like for the most part I did with the exception of the bursts. I definitely cannot wait to get started running this game.

I know this is a late addition to this forum response but here goes:

One more thing to consider when dealing with cover and armors in general is the type of damage involved. A bolter round for example is based on the explosive quality, its additional modifer of tearing further should enhance it's ability to degrade armor over time. However, the type of armor that is best destroyed by an explosive round is the those of the great density (ceramite, duracreate etc). Note while the bolter round will affect sand bags, the damage potential is drastically lessened as each bag will give out on its own. Tests of these concepts can be easily understood if you look at current ballistic gels for penetration.

A flamer for example having the infamous burn quality is brutal at destroying lesser covers. The sand bags for example would be decimated by the attack, and of course not provide any cover from the assault. In addition those boxes and some barrels in the warehouse fight may go up as well. However, I think we can all agree that if a flamer is used on a hardened structure like that of a bunker, with ceramite if even, this weapon will not degrade cover values.

Take the lasgun, an energy variant weapon, The strength of its purpose is in its single coherent light beam. Lasers are wonderful devices yet they suffer from a continous issue when faced with nearly any armor, that is lack of penetration. A flak jacket will most certainly be poxed by lasgun fire; however, this will not likely destroy the armor. The same can be said against sand bags and such. This is especially important to think about when you ponder the long las, or other variants rifles. These weapons are better at penetration not so much based on an improved ballistic or penetration cability of the orginal round (ie over charge packs), but due to enhanced placement. Even a Land Raider is vulnerable at its tracks and articulation points. That does not mean that the armor of said vehicle would be damaged from the weapon, critical hits are different however.

Ballistic weapons are hard to decide but if you think of the common sense value of caliber and powder of the rounds you should see that some armors would be adversely affected while others would take the most minimalistic reductions that of course could be easily repaired post fight.

Heave Plasma guns are out there for one reason and one reason alone. They decimate armor and cook your enemy.

F irst, a minor correction. Jojo's 3 DoS would mean 3 ADDITIONAL hits, not a total of 3. (Ie, a roll with no DoS is still a hit, but just with one bullet. 1 DoS ups this to 2, and so forth). So Jojo would score 4 wounds, but the rest of your calculations are correct.

Now i may be wrong and if i am i will repect the corection but i thought you get an extra hit for every 2 dos, ie if you get 3 dos that is 1 +1 for the extra 2 dos?

Now i may be wrong and if i am i will repect the corection but i thought you get an extra hit for every 2 dos, ie if you get 3 dos that is 1 +1 for the extra 2 dos?

You might want to take a look at the errata...

ah... cunning is that errata for me missing thing. **** my dyslexic mind and speed reading skills