Anyway, as an aside, how do people interpret the interaction between amputator rounds (gives felling, which halves TB on defence) and Eye of Vengence (gives bonus damage equal to the defence score of the target).

If Eye of Vengence's bonus damage is modified by Felling, then it makes the two essentially incompatible, or at least, no bonus for using both. It actually makes it better for a sniper to use expander rounds (-1 damage, but +2 pen) with Eye of Vengence, as at least then they get one more effective damage in.

Why do you think that amputator rounds and Eye of Vengeance wouldn't stack? The way I read it, Eye of Vengeance would add bonus damage first, and then when comparing the total damage to the enemy's defense, the amputator rounds' effects would come into play.

Because Felling directly modifies the defence value. Eye of Vengence uses the defence value of the target. Its an order of operations thing definitely.

What is interesting, is called shot is at least now immensely more useful since any given wound will result in some location based condition.

But since you don't add to existing critical damage like in DH1, you only get to pick where you want the condition to be. If it's your first shot, you probably won't even get anything worth the extra effort.

Also, looking at the Sniper Riffle, with it's 1/3 attacks per round disallowing called shots and aiming, makes me feel that the RoF system really doesn't work well if the shot is not on the first AP spent, so you can't cheat it up. For instance, you can't maneuver and than shoot with a sniper, but you can with an autogun, even if the physical act of shooting the gun doesn't take more time; RoF under 1 should allow you to shoot with one AP and than have a "recharge" cost to fire again in the same round. So RoF 1/2 could fire twice in a round, and have 1 AP left, and RoF 1/3 weapons could fire twice in a round by using all their AP. Both could also be fired once, and than have 3 AP left.

You could than have weapons, such as pump action shotguns, which require you to spend the remaining AP before any refire (so you can't shoot for 1 AP of 3, than move, than next round shoot again for 1 AP of 3, and so on), which means that although in the case of a 1/3 weapon, you could fire twice in the first round, but would need to spend 2 AP later to rearm the thing. It might be a little too complex, but would certainly add to the realism of the game, while also allowing people more flexibility in how they use their weapons, especially those.

I reference the RoF issue in my thread on the Single Shot quality. Thats what the Sniper Rifle does need. Its RoF 1/3rd to prevent PCs using their (eventually) high BS to nail a target with several high wound effects.

Which again will turn people to use automatic weapons. Not sure of the thinking there.

A trained sniper can, and should be able to, kill one target each turn. A heavy bolter user can kill multiple people in a turn. With the new rules, a sniper becomes ineffective, having removed the bonus damage from accurate weapons, however a heavy bolter can kill 4 targets potentially.

That's a definite imbalance.

To clear something up from the Tabletop part, as some have the wrong infos here.

1. Eviscarators roll double in the tabletop for armour pen. The 3rd edition Witch HUnter Codex (the latest I might add) clearly states: "[The Eviscarator] is treated in all other respects as a power fist that rolls 2D6 for Armour Penetration." So basically it is the Ecclesiarchies equivalent of a power fist.

2. Meltas in Tabletop are a mixed blessing, on short ranges they turn everything into slack, but are useless against units (except character models) since you (usually) have one melta per squad (except you are playing IG and buying a party bus (aka Chimera) and put in a vet squad with three meltas and go armour hunting).
   The biggest drawback for meltas however is their short range. The normal shooting weapon has a range of 24" a normal melta has 12". The additional D6 for armour penetration is only rolled at half the weapon range, so 6" (This is also the charge range for most units). This means you basically have to hug the tank to get the additional armour pen.

So my suggestion would be:

1. Make the eviscarator an equivalent to a power fist.
2. Meltas seem fine with me, as their new rule is basically more fluffy, although one could argue that the old was a bit more balanced. However
3. Penetration needs to be upped by at least three times for every weapon
4. As for sniper rifles: They really need to be worked on. Since the flaw they currently have is based on the current wounds system, that is the point to put the crowbar.
   MorioMortis system sounds nice too.
   

You don't need high penetration if the weapon is sufficiently destructive. A melta could, and argueably should, have lousy penetration but does so much damage that armour is mostly irrelevant. Low pen/higher damage shifts the importance of armour up with respect to toughness and soaking damage. There's more than one possible fix as long as it gets to the desirable spot, which is to make a melta a slow firing weapon that is a threat even to armoured vehicles as close range.

Arguably should? Please argue for it. Because so far fluff states it simply melts through ceramite. Not alot of damage, just that the damage gets through the armour. Space marines HAVE survived melta shots in the fluff due to their toughness, while their armor did nothing to stop the superheated gass. In this system however, as long as the melta isn't at close range enough armour will stop the shot.

My main irk is that it lessens weapon diversity and specialty gear. Like fighting a weakling in a hulking power armour. Or a tough ork with hardly little armour but hardy fungi keeps him going. Different weapons will deliver very different results against these two. In the new system, they won't. It doesn't matter. The pen/armour stuff seems so watered down it might as well be removed exept for vehicles.

You need high penetration, even if your weapon is sufficiently destructive. One thing 40k never ever accommodated was the relation between penetration and destructive force.

An example from the real life, which can analogously taken into 40k:

A bigger cannon does not equal bigger penetration.The 88mm on the Tiger tank was in all respects worse in penetration than the 75mm of the Panther tank.

Since real life does not have something like hitpoints a penetration usually is the death sentence for a tank crew.

Another example: The 5,56mm is a great round to penetrate body armour (high speed, but low drag). However against unarmoured enemies it quickly becomes far worse than the (older) 7,62mm, just because it has more speed but less mass.

Basically this means you need both. A high penetration and high damage.

However the current system does not offer this. You either have a high Penetration (melta at close range) or high damage (Weapons on full auto)

While the current wound system is (in my eyes) definitely a step in the right direction (wounds are just stupid and unreal) it needs serious work to make it not more hilarious than the old wounds system.

Toughness should play an important role for those who actually have a toughness that is able to stop the devastating weapons 40k offers (so ©SM, Orks, Daemons). For everyone else armour is the way to go. The current system does not offer that, but over emphasises toughness (again)

Remember that ignoring armour is derived from a TT game mechanic convention. Armour, in TT, gives a saving thrown. Therefore any weapon that armour would not protect you from ignores armour saves. Melta weapons operate by way of microwaves or projection of superheated gas. Neither is terribly good at penetrating material. The energy yields are just so high that nothing in the path survives.

You can simulate that in a number of ways in a system where armour isn't a saving throw but a damage reduction variable. One is to make the melta have a high damage number and ignore a large amount of armour. That's vanilla 40K. Another is have it do an even more hellish amount of damage. Either works for simulating how a melta works, but there are certain game mechanic implications on the importance of armour vs. toughness on which way you go.

Melta weapons operate by way of microwaves or projection of superheated gas. Neither is terribly good at penetrating material.

Wait? Wut?

If I attack you with a stream of super heated gasses that just melt you away how is that not good at armour penetration. By that logic HEAT rounds should not work, as they create a dart of super heated copper that "burns"/"melts" though the armour. A Melta is exactly that, only that it does not create a copper dart but does that like a oxyhydrogen torch only tuned up to eleven.

It seems like you're completely ignoring the main advantage to Melta weapons, Cynical Cat: Anti-vehicle.

Speaking TT mechanics, Meltas are pretty strong, and their AP is good, but they're not that amazing. There are plenty of weapons that do better (Lascannons?).

The one thing that sets Meltas apart is that when at close range, they cut through vehicles like butter. They're not anti-infantry, they're anti-vehicle.

Vehicles in 40kRPG are defined by their high armour but lack of toughness. If you want a vehicle killing weapon that isn't also devastating to infantry, the only way to do it is to have low-to-medium strength but huge Penetration (or a new special rule).

It's not good at armour penetration because gas jets aren't good at penetrating solids. HEAT rounds don't use high temperature (although they're hot, that's not why they penetrate) they use high pressure streams of molten (liquid) metal.

With a melta, penetration doesn't really matter. Why doesn't it matter? Because the amount of energy is measured in gigajoules and that's so much energy it doesn't matter that your breastplate soaks it up because your breastplate vaporizes and there's still plenty of energy left to flash vaporize all the water in your torso even if the collateral damage effects of wearing armour that's just been converted into vapor was somehow survivable.

Depleted uranium slugs are good armour penetrators. Melta blasts aren't. They're just so powerful that armour isn't going to save you.

Oh meltas should definitely be deadly to vehicles at close ranges and a high penetration score backed by good damage numbers has always been a simple and effective way of handling it. I'm not saying it's not a good way of handling. I'm saying its not the only way of handling it.

First off i would like to say hi to everyone. This is my first post but hopefully not the last for any FFG. I would just like to say could you all not just use fragmentation rounds to gain the storm quality (arguably better then the old accurate?) and maybe even combine with eye of vengeance? as i read the rules seems the rounds would not add a penalty to the AP cost since it cannot lower it below 1 whole AP.

I know this is not a perfect fix since most people i know just want to "one shot" with the sniper rifle. but i would expect someone who was trying to snipe someone to load to kill so to speak. again this is my first post so correct anything you find wrong with my findings, and i hope to be a helpful part of this beta

Could the sniper rifle problem be fixed with some sort of Quality? Decent base damage, but rolls extra on the wound table if used with Called Shot and/or Aim? Automatic criticals?
A new Talent, perhaps? So that raw recruits would benefit from More Dakka, while a trained sniper could take out most foes from afar.

Could the sniper rifle problem be fixed with some sort of Quality? Decent base damage, but rolls extra on the wound table if used with Called Shot and/or Aim? Automatic criticals?

A new Talent, perhaps? So that raw recruits would benefit from More Dakka, while a trained sniper could take out most foes from afar.

Several suggestions have been made, including giving accurate weapons back their +10 as a boost on wound tables. However, this overlooks the fact that Novice enemies do not use the wound table, so it still could not one shot a mook without rolling a RF.

Several suggestions have been made, including giving accurate weapons back their +10 as a boost on wound tables. However, this overlooks the fact that Novice enemies do not use the wound table, so it still could not one shot a mook without rolling a RF.

That can easily be solved by having mooks die as soon as they take for than a certain numbers of spillover damage (like between 5 and 15, depending on relative toughness). Right now, two wounds will represent at least between 5 and 10 damage, so it is essentially the same thing.

Eh. Might work, but only addresses the issue with Sniper Rifles, and not with things that should be logical one shot kills in general. (Meltas, frag grenades, etc.)

The system was intended to entirely replace (or be in addition to) the 2 wound kill. As long as the weapons do a reasonable amount of damage (aka, more than autopistols) it should still work well; your melta is doing 2d10 + 4 (another issue... why 2 dices, and only here?), so, on average, you are 1 shoting 5-10 wound mooks, 2 shoting over that, which works pretty well. The plasma gun is the same, although a lot more reliable for butchering mooks (which is nice for a change).