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I really hate the thought that lightning claws are twin-linked. Hopefully they mean each claw/digit on the fist is linked, which would be quadruple linked. Nobody's hands are twin-linked unless they're in shackles.

If anything, I think twin-linked should be inferior to two distinct weapons. It's double the amount of attacks but cannot be aimed independently. Therefore, small vehicles like bikes, Taurox, Chimera, etc can only mount a twin-linked weapon on its single turret mount, but bigger boys like dreadnought can get one on each arm. IE, twin-linked is the poor-man's double weapon.
Man I want to play Mechwarrior right now...

 kingpbjames wrote:
I really hate the thought that lightning claws are twin-linked. Hopefully they mean each claw/digit on the fist is linked, which would be quadruple linked. Nobody's hands are twin-linked unless they're in shackles.

I'm okay with the abstraction, its better than having two rules like Shred and Twin-Linked with the same effect, using Shred for twin-linked weapons as well would probably have been better to avoid confusing returning veterans and as you mentioned, to avoid having the effect which could be desired for any type of weapon tied to one specific reason for weapons to have that rule (twin-linked weapons create a tight cluster of impact which is more likely to break through tank plating (I like that explanation for the re-rolls)).

 vict0988 wrote:

 kingpbjames wrote:
I really hate the thought that lightning claws are twin-linked. Hopefully they mean each claw/digit on the fist is linked, which would be quadruple linked. Nobody's hands are twin-linked unless they're in shackles.

... (twin-linked weapons create a tight cluster of impact which is more likely to break through tank plating....).

Well, you could simply go for a better AP i.g. -2 instead of 0 and same profile for the other stats.

The Deer Hunter wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 kingpbjames wrote:
I really hate the thought that lightning claws are twin-linked. Hopefully they mean each claw/digit on the fist is linked, which would be quadruple linked. Nobody's hands are twin-linked unless they're in shackles.

... (twin-linked weapons create a tight cluster of impact which is more likely to break through tank plating....).

Well, you could simply go for a better AP i.g. -2 instead of 0 and same profile for the other stats.

Would not work in my opinion because it would have no effect on Daemons. I still feel like double shots is simple and works, I could be persuaded pretty easily into getting rid of twin-linked weapons entirely and just giving the appropriate units two of x gun, oh no they can spray one enemy with half the shots of their twin-linked gun and the other half at a different enemy, the horror. I understand to people that want units to shoot at one target per phase this might be an abomination, but in a system where that is the case this change also wouldn't be different from double shots.

Eh while I would prefer twin weapons to go back to double shots, I would still prefer if they are unable to split fire. They are two guns strapped together after all.

Also is there any example of any twin-linked unit that would be broken if they are back to double shots?

 Tyran wrote:
Eh while I would prefer twin weapons to go back to double shots, I would still prefer if they are unable to split fire. They are two guns strapped together after all.

Also is there any example of any twin-linked unit that would be broken if they are back to double shots?

The most potent examples I can think of are big guns mounted on vehicles. So things like twin brightlances on a wave serpent or twin MMs on immolators. But even in the case of the serpent, I'm not sure getting an extra brightlance shot would be "broken." It would need a points adjustment and would presumably make the game a smidge more lethal, but it probably wouldn't break anything.

I feel like the changes to TL this edition may have just been part of a blanket effort to reduce lethality by lowering the number of shots in the game. That is, I don't think TL weapons lost their extra shots because they broke the game, but I think they lost those extra shots as part of an overall push to make things die slower.

I feel there are a few ways you could do it, but here’s a new one: any twin weapon just does double damage vs its normal version. For example, a twin lascannon does 2d6 damage as opposed to 1d6.
This makes the weapon effectively twice as good as the single version, but not as versatile as having 2 separate weapons, and is more swingy.

Certain things could get double attacks if it feels right. Twin Lightning claws would just get extra attacks since you’re actually attacking more. Aggressors can just go back to 6 shots, since it’s 2 separate guns that aren’t explicitly linked together.

Dandelion wrote:

Spoiler:

I feel there are a few ways you could do it, but here’s a new one: any twin weapon just does double damage vs its normal version. For example, a twin lascannon does 2d6 damage as opposed to 1d6.
This makes the weapon effectively twice as good as the single version, but not as versatile as having 2 separate weapons, and is more swingy.

Certain things could get double attacks if it feels right. Twin Lightning claws would just get extra attacks since you’re actually attacking more. Aggressors can just go back to 6 shots, since it’s 2 separate guns that aren’t explicitly linked together.

Genius and yet so obvious. I'm writing this down, "A weapon with the Twin-Linked keyword has double the damage characteristic and is considered to be a Twin-Linked weapon. For example, a damage characteristic of 1d6 becomes 2d6."
Seems simple enough, cuts down on dice rolls, etc. I doubt this can just be dropped straight into 10th ed so I'll probably just houserule it on a unit-by-unit basis.

Hmm. I don't know. Doubling the damage does a few weird things depending on the weapon. Take windriders. All the past incarnations of TL basically make their shuriken catapults varying degrees more effective against the targets they normally want to go after. Extra shots, rerolling to-hit, and reroll to-wound all make them more effective than a single shuriken catapult against, let's say, guardsmen. But if you double the damage, that does nothing to help them clear out squads of guardsmen, but it makes them specifically more effective against multi-wound targets like marines, monsters, etc.

There's probably some weirdness with how that interacts with re-rolls too. Let's look at a wave serpent. A serpent with TL bright lances (where TL means doing 2d6+4 damage instead of 1d6 +2) can use Strands of Fate or the eldar detachment rerolls to efficiently ensure that the single attack made by that weapon hits and wounds successfully. Throw in the possible use of a command point if you roll below average on the damage roll.

So where the current TL brightlance is just a slightly more reliable lance, and where the 9th edition TL brightlance had higher average and potential damage output but needed more Strands/rerolls to get there, your proposed double damage version would hit/wound more reliably than the 9th edition version while also being even easier to support with rerolls.

Meanwhile, something like a scatter laser (lots of mid-strength, bad AP attacks) wouldn't be nearly as capable of using Strands/rerolls to ensure a high percentage of its attacks hit/wound, and the attacks that do go through would only be doing a single extra point of damage. Which wouldn't necessarily matter if you're not playing against marines or shooting at a tank (with an antii-infantyr weapon.)

tldr;doubling damage seems wonky. I don't think that's a great appraoch. The 8th, 9th, and 10th edition versions are all probably fine in their own ways.

Well, I did list a couple examples where it wouldn’t work. Plus it’s not like doubling the damage requires having a USR anyway. Doubling the damage on the twin lascannon doesn’t prevent twin shuriken from having a twin linked rule or from having more attacks.

Kind of double-dipping at that point though, right?

Is that a bad thing?

Hurricane Bolters should delete entire squads of light infantry, not maybe kill 1-2 guardsmen.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Hurricane Bolters should delete entire squads of light infantry, not maybe kill 1-2 guardsmen.

36 shots, that's 6 shots per bolter to kill an entire squad of light infantry. A hurricane bolter definitely shouldn't do that, I don't even think 2 hurricane bolters should.

So a Landraider with two Hurricane Bolters? What about a squad of 3 Vertus Prators? That's 3 sets of HBs right there. The Landraider has dual HBs. Are we really at the point where a 270pt unit, or a nearly 400pt unit shouldn't be able to single turn delete a 90pt unit?

Wyldhunt wrote:Kind of double-dipping at that point though, right?

Dandelion wrote:Is that a bad thing?

Not innately, but it does beg the question of what your design goals are with those changes. If your goal is to better represent the lore of twin-linked weapons and that doubling the damage doesn't really do that/might need an additional TL rule distinct from the Damage increase, then it sounds like you don't think a Damage increase really satisfies this goal. If your goal is to make TL weapons more lethal, then you'd need to first explain why you think a lethality increase would be good for the game, and then also explain why you'd want to use a Damage increase to achieve that rather than another approach such as doubling the number of Attacks (which avoids the issues in my previous post). And again, if you're proposing a Damage increase on top of some other TL rule, then it seems like that lethality increase could probably just be handled by whatever the other TL rule is.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:Hurricane Bolters should delete entire squads of light infantry, not maybe kill 1-2 guardsmen.

Well, a land raider packing hurricane bolters puts out 24 shots within rapid fire range. 24 shots becomes 16 hits becomes something like 10.333 wounds on the first pass plus about 3.78 wounds after the rerolls from twin-linked. So about 14.11 wounds in total. Last I checked, guardsmen have a 5+ save, so they'll be taking about 9.4 unsaved wounds. In other words, hurricane bolters already kill 94% of an entire squad of guardsmen. So if that's the goal you want to aim for, the current rules already achieve it.

Great, if you get good rolls, a unit that costs 4x the price Might eliminate the weakest basic troops in the game currently.


I am going to apologize for my tone and go touch some grass. I'm sick of my favorite units Vertus Praetors getting their Dung kicked in by units that cost almost nothing.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Great, if you get good rolls, a unit that costs 4x the price Might eliminate the weakest basic troops in the game currently.


I am going to apologize for my tone and go touch some grass. I'm sick of my favorite units Vertus Praetors getting their Dung kicked in by units that cost almost nothing.

How exactly is an Infantry Squad kicking the crap out of Vertus Praetors?

Let's assume they're within 6" with a Lascannon, a Melta Gun, seven Lasguns and two Laspistols.
I'll also assume they somehow stood still despite being that close, and give them the Heavy Bonus on the Lascannon.

Melta
1 shots
1/2 hits
2/6 or 1/3 wounds
1/6 failed saves, a fail that kills a Praetor 5/6 times due to Melta.

Lascannon
1 shot
1/2 hits
5/12 wounds
5/24 failed saves, a fail that kills a Praetor 2/3 times.

Lasguns
16 shots
8 hits
8/6 or 4/3 wounds
4/18 or 2/9 failed saves

The Lasguns are basically irrelevant, needing 72 shots to do a wound. And the Lascannon and Melta CAN get lucky and pop two... But they usually won't.

Lethal Hits helps a bit, increasing Melta to 7/36 failed saves, Lascannon to 2/9 failed saves.
The Lasguns get the big glowup, increasing to (from 16 shots) to 16/27 failed saves. That's more than double the damage-and it's still chip damage at best.

Whereas one Vertus Praetor does...

6 shots
5 hits
40/9 wounds
80/27 failed saves
2.96 dead GEQ

and

5 attacks
25/6 hits
125/36 wounds
125/36 failed saves
3.47 dead GEQ

So 90 points of Praetor kills 35 or so points of Infantry Squad.
65 points of Infantry Squad kills (with Lethal Hits, Heavy, and Melta) does about 40 points of damage to a Praetor squad. A more realistic outlook (no Melta at all, no rapid fire, no pistols) gives them just shy of 20 points of damage.

I don't know what I was thinking, TL just giving double damage would be pretty useless against light infantry units.
I would prefer TL weapons should just have double attacks so they can't be split-fired, unlike having two of the same weapon.

Twin linked should just be:

Each successful hit scores two hits.

They either miss big or hit big.

 Hellebore wrote:
Twin linked should just be:

Each successful hit scores two hits.

They either miss big or hit big.

That's a valid way to go, but:

A.) You'd be making TL weapons quite a bit more lethal. This would be right up there with doubling the number of shots. Consequently, you'd either be increasing the lethality of the game again, or else you'd have to make anything with a TL weapon more expensive to compensate.

B.) You'd run into a little weirdness with rerolls. Something like the eldar detachment rerolls would be much more powerful for some TL weapons than others. Consider a TL bright lance with detachment rerolls compared to a TL scatter laser with detachment rerolls.

C.) Reasonable people could argue (and have in this thread) that hitting with one of the linked weapons doesn't necessarily mean you're hititng with the other. (In fact, having the barrels pointing in slighitly different places could be the whole point depending on the weapon/situation.) Maybe both barrels of my eldar jetbikers' TL shuripults are hitting guys in that squad, but both multimeltas on either side of my immolator catching a firstborn marine seems iffy. Even having both those multi-meltas catch something like a crisis suit or a carnifex requires some pretty specific angles.So having one pull of the trigger result in either 0 or 2 hits (never 1 hit) feels slightly weird. Compare that to the 9th edition version of TL (double Attacks) where maybe the second barrel lands a hit and maybe it doesn't. Not that doubling the number of Attacks was without its own weirdness, but double barrels = double shots was pretty intuitive.

Double shots is almost the same as just listing 2 of the same weapons on the profile. I don't really think it warrants a special rule in that case.

The only mechanical difference I can see is twin linked prevents two guns firing at different targets.

Imo they shouldn't just be two of the same weapon, because it reduces the point of just having two.

 Hellebore wrote:
Double shots is almost the same as just listing 2 of the same weapons on the profile. I don't really think it warrants a special rule in that case.

The only mechanical difference I can see is twin linked prevents two guns firing at different targets.

Imo they shouldn't just be two of the same weapon, because it reduces the point of just having two.

Also valid. As discussed previously in this thread, the point of the TL seems to have always been to make a weapon better than a non-TL version but less good than two independent weapons. But just eschewing TL altogether could also work. It's just also a pretty significant lethality boost, and you may need to fiddle with points costs accordingly.

A windrider with TL shuripults, for example, would go from having 2 shots that wound more often to doubling its total potential damage and its opportunities to hit. Which isn't quite as good as doubling its lethality (it goes from full wound rerolls to a single reroll from the detachment rule), but is still an improvement.

There's a range of things you could do.

You could decide that twin linking is less accurate or reduces range, so you could go double shots but lower bs/-x" range to the standard weapon.

You could just make it sustained hits 1 applied to a standard version of the weapon.

Or you could mix n match those.

You could instead decide that twin linking increases strength and ap by 1 and use the standard weapon profile.



There are a lot of options, depending on what role twin linked is supposed to fill beyond two of the same gun.

Doesn't help that GW is extremely inconsistent about it.

Sometimes a twin-linked gun is twin-linked.
Sometimes a twin linked gun is twice the shots. (Land Raider lascannons, storm bolters and combi-bolters)
Sometimes two separate guns are two separate guns.
Sometimes two separate guns are one twin-linked gun (Aggressors, Tyranid Harpy's heavy venom cannon).

And as discussed on the first page, the nitty gritty of what exactly twin-linked is meant to represent/do is sort of hard to pin down. Are you basically just putting out a second stream of bulllets with the understanding that one of those streams will almost surely miss, but having two means that at least one of them will hit? (Covered by the old reroll to-hit version). Are you hoping that both barrels will hit a single enemy model and be more likely to score a meaningful wound? (Covered by the current version). Are we assuming that both barrels are individually targeting enemies and thus potentially killing more enemies? (Covered by more Attacks or treating them as separate weapons albeit with some fluff weirdness.)

Looking at the wave serpent again, it seems like you'd twin-link a brightlance with the hopes that both lances would hit an enemy vehicle and thus double your chances of inflicting meaningful damage (the to-wound reroll). But for something like a scatter laser, you're probably just trying pump out more shots with the hope that more shots = more dead guardsmen (the to-hit reroll or extra attacks option).

So it's weird.

I guess you could theoretically get rid of TL as a special rule and instead go back to having bespoke statlines for TL weapons (we have bespoke statlines now anyway), then apply whichever benefits make the most sense. So maybe a TL Brightlance has a better Damage characteristic than a normal lance because that second shot is perforating a second section of the enemy tank. Meanwhile the TLscatter laser might just get X additional shots compared to a non-TL scatter laser. Basically, if it seems like twin-linking would serve different purposes on different guns, then maybe we shouldn't restrict ourselves to a one-size-fits-all approach.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I guess you could theoretically get rid of TL as a special rule and instead go back to having bespoke statlines for TL weapons (we have bespoke statlines now anyway), then apply whichever benefits make the most sense. So maybe a TL Brightlance has a better Damage characteristic than a normal lance because that second shot is perforating a second section of the enemy tank. Meanwhile the TLscatter laser might just get X additional shots compared to a non-TL scatter laser. Basically, if it seems like twin-linking would serve different purposes on different guns, then maybe we shouldn't restrict ourselves to a one-size-fits-all approach.

Yes this is my feeling on it. Just make them a distinct weapon profile that reflects their role.

twin shuriken catapults on bikes might just be 3 shots, while twin lascannons might focused fire of two shots angled to hit the same spot, increasing damage strength and AP.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I guess you could theoretically get rid of TL as a special rule and instead go back to having bespoke statlines for TL weapons (we have bespoke statlines now anyway), then apply whichever benefits make the most sense. So maybe a TL Brightlance has a better Damage characteristic than a normal lance because that second shot is perforating a second section of the enemy tank. Meanwhile the TLscatter laser might just get X additional shots compared to a non-TL scatter laser. Basically, if it seems like twin-linking would serve different purposes on different guns, then maybe we shouldn't restrict ourselves to a one-size-fits-all approach.

Yes this is my feeling on it. Just make them a distinct weapon profile that reflects their role.

twin shuriken catapults on bikes might just be 3 shots, while twin lascannons might focused fire of two shots angled to hit the same spot, increasing damage strength and AP.

The downside is that you don't have one rule to remember for how twin weapons work.

 vict0988 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I guess you could theoretically get rid of TL as a special rule and instead go back to having bespoke statlines for TL weapons (we have bespoke statlines now anyway), then apply whichever benefits make the most sense. So maybe a TL Brightlance has a better Damage characteristic than a normal lance because that second shot is perforating a second section of the enemy tank. Meanwhile the TLscatter laser might just get X additional shots compared to a non-TL scatter laser. Basically, if it seems like twin-linking would serve different purposes on different guns, then maybe we shouldn't restrict ourselves to a one-size-fits-all approach.

Yes this is my feeling on it. Just make them a distinct weapon profile that reflects their role.

twin shuriken catapults on bikes might just be 3 shots, while twin lascannons might focused fire of two shots angled to hit the same spot, increasing damage strength and AP.

The downside is that you don't have one rule to remember for how twin weapons work.

Sort of a matter of perspective. You don't have a single rule for "twin-linked" weapons because "twin-linked" weapons don't really exist at that point. In the same way that a dark lance has a different statline when it's carried by a kabalite warrior vs when it's mounted on a raider. 10th is already full of bespoke versions of the same kind of weapon (for better or worse), so replacing the TL rule with bespoke weapon profiles would just be expanding on that slightly.

Or put another way, it's not that you're losing a rule to unit all TL weapons; it's that you have one fewer USRs to remember.

 kingpbjames wrote:
I really hate the thought that lightning claws are twin-linked. Hopefully they mean each claw/digit on the fist is linked, which would be quadruple linked.

I just had the most specific memory...