This is not necessarily a complaint about the reload times (although I do personally think it shouldn't take someone twice as long to replace the ammo in a shuriken catapult as it does an autogun), rather, how would you justify it in game? 10 seconds to reload a lascannon sounds reasonable, but what are you doing in the 10 seconds it takes to reload a catapult (or pistol for that matter, same length of time for both)?

There are two ideas I've been toying with. The first is that, going from the artwork in the Creatures Anathema, these reload times are for the old fashioned 2nd ed discus magazine catapults, rather than the newer stick magazine catapults. This would make sense as the discus looks like it is far more complicated to fit into the gun than simply sticking another stick into the gun (which visually at least looks exactly the same as replacing a lascell or an autogun magazine).

The second idea was that the reload time was for a human, with eldar being able to reload faster (as the gun is psychoconductive it should come apart at a thought, without requiring the use of hands). Considering the oldest background for eldar weapons actually used a mind impulse to fire them, they didn't use triggers it would make it impossible for a human to use an eldar weapon unless they were psychic.

My biggest problem is trying to figure out how a weapon with a magazine that fits into the bottom of the gun in the same manner as an autogun takes twice as long to reload.

Hellebore

Because it's Xenos, designed by Xenos, for Xenos. Perhaps the justification is that since it is psycho-reactive and since the PC's aren't going to be Eldar (at least not in a regular game of DH as it's written) it takes longer for the weapon to 'cycle up' and be ready to fire once you've emptied and reloaded the chamber. Think of it kinda of like a really old CD/DVD player that takes time to spin up...at least in the hands of non-eldar would be my opinion.

So you like the non eldar line?

It's confusing because the shuriken weapons in the Creatures Anathema are given only for eldar characters and yet they still retain the same very slow reload time as the one from disciples of the dark gods, despite the latter being given as a PC available weapon and thus only useable by humans.

While we're at it, the dark eldar splinter rifle and pistol both have a 2Full reload time as well...

hellebore

Yeah in my opinion the non Eldar concept would be the way I'd go. Sure they give them only to Eldar but it would just start to get a little more complicated than it needed to be if they started giving multiple lines of stats depending on what particular race was using a weapon. Easier just to run with the 'when humans use this weapon...' and run with the concept that if you go through more than a hundred rounds in a single encounter as an Eldar chances are, like modern military, you will have backup that will cover you as your weapon reloads (not to mention the rapid reload trait that most likely a dedicated warrior will have to quickly reload his or her or its ranged weapon.

Hellebore said:

IIRC, splinter weapons use a toploading crystalline ammunition source (the 'bulb' at the back of the weapon above the grip), which have never looked to be that easy to replace.

from france

i don't know why it takes so long to reload a shuriken catapult but look at the dark eldar weapons in the book "purge the unclean". it is not a psyco reactive weapon and it doesn't take so long to reload. so maybe it is the psycho reactive thing that matter.

futhermore in one of the collective novel book, sorry i can't remenber the name even if it is quite good, there is a story in wich shuriken catapult are used by human..

in this novel human don't seem to have difficulties to reload it but it does take time to adjust to it. they also have some targeting probleme and trouble to apreciate the impact of the eldar weapon.

so for me it quite normal that human has some difficulty to reload and use it.

Splinter weapons seem to load in a similar fashion to the old discus magazine for the shuriken catapult, which doesn't seem as easy to use as the more conventional solid core magazine.

At the moment I'm looking at creating two design schools of catapult, each school using a different magazine mechanism which has its ups and downs.

I liked the 200 round magazine the playtest catapult had in DotDG, as it seemed at least partially similar to the 'thousands of rounds' concept of the weapon (and put it in a similar vein to the splinter rifle) so I was thinking of having the two ammunition types have different qualities, such as larger or smaller ammunition quantity.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how the discus magazine would actually store ammunition? At first I thought it was just flat packed with individual shuriken precut, but then I thought, if you follow the solid core concept, it could have a toroid of ammunition material that is sliced vertically into discs. However it would seem the discus would have less space to store ammunition than the ~foot long stick (even if it cut 1mm discs at 300mm long that's 300 rounds from a single stick - and we know they cut them much, much thinner than that).

So a combination of non eldar use and magazine type I think would fit as a way of explaining speed of reload. Now I've just got to write up the variants I want.

Hellebore

"A single solid core of plasti-crystal material is used as ammunition. As the weapon is fired, high-energy impulses from the back of the weapon form the individual shuriken missiles by splitting the ammunition core. "

From the warhammer 40k lexicanum

I'm not sure what you're getting at there?

That information was written after 3rd edition when they changed the way a shuriken catapult worked by giving it a conventional stick magazine but that was sliced as it moved up into the barrel.

The original 2nd ed catapult used a disc shaped magazine that fit inside the gun lying flat and it contained shuriken. This particular design is the one they used for some reason in the illustration of the shuriken weapons in Creatures Anathema, rather than the solid core stick ammo described on lexicanum.

Hellebore

Maybe they never made new art for it, dunno.

They are notorious for having inconsistant stories though, so I would just use whatever you see fit.

Maybe they are assuming players get access to older versions of the weapon.

Way back in the day Sylvester Stallone and Wesley snipes were in a little movie called "The Demolition Man". Wesley's character ends up getting his hands on a futuristic gun, but it had to essentially "warm up". During that time he was vulerable, but it was mainly a cycle time to get the weapon charged up. Once it was ready to go it fired normally.

My long-winded point is, perhaps on this version of the shuriken capapult or the splinter gun, the reload time includes "spooling" time. The ammo loading takes a full action and then a full action is required to prep the ammo for firing.

That being said. You might allow for your players to do other things while they wait for their weapon to spool up once loaded. This would stick with the rules that say 2 full rounds to reload and add a little extra fluff as to why.

The proper response….

It takes so long to load because it is an inferior and corrupt xenos weapon. They are used only by xenos filth and impure heretics worthy only of stoking the fires of righteous purity with their corpses.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Ding, ding, ding. A we have a winner!

I think its probably more likely for game balance rather than any realistic reason.

It should take virtually the same amount of time to load a clip into one of them as a normal autogun. Even taking into account it is xenos tech, it should be more or less the same time after a couple of attempts.

I think the different types of catapult design could be explained away by different guns being designed differently by different craftsmen. It is especially likely given eldar who follow a path of the master gunsmith probably design things according to their own ideas, so many different but functionally similar designs would probably exist for all eldar weapons.