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Has anyone ever done a comparison of the Bolter through the various iterations of 40K?

The Strength has always been 4, and the AP has ranged from 5 to 0, but as the different methods for Strength vs Toughness how has their effectiveness risen and dropped over the editions?

I know there are a lot of addition factors, just wondering.

-STS

slade the sniper wrote:
Has anyone ever done a comparison of the Bolter through the various iterations of 40K?

The Strength has always been 4, and the AP has ranged from 5 to 0, but as the different methods for Strength vs Toughness how has their effectiveness risen and dropped over the editions?

I know there are a lot of addition factors, just wondering.

-STS

It’s not the statline, but the rapid fire rule that determined the power of the bolter. It’s fun to compare and contrast with the stormbolter over the years.

(At work, can’t do a full write up atm)

Yeah. 2nd Ed the Bolter was a pretty decent weapon, when wielded by Marines.

Its base stats (24” range, S4, -1 Armour and 1 damage) were above average, but not significantly so. Certainly it paled in comparison to the Shuriken Catapult, which had the same stats barring -2 armour and 1 die sustained fire.

But, put it in the hands of a Marine?

First, you could Combat Squad if the mood took you, allowing you to spread out your squads more. Sure it meant you were 5 strong per demi-squad, but in 2nd Ed units were much, much smaller. Aspect Warriors were typically 5 strong or smaller for instance.

Second? As Nevelon mentioned, Marines could Rapid Fire Bolt Pistols, Bolters and Storm Bolters, if the wielding unit remained stationary. This meant every qualifying weapon shot twice.

Add in BS4 (upper end of basic units), and your basic Tactical Marine was pretty damned shooty.

Dark Angels (at least, I’ve a complete suite of Codexes, but am not familiar with them) could one up that with the right Banner on Brother Bethor, allowing Rapid Fire on the move.

Also keep in mind 3+ armour or better was pretty damned rare in 2nd Ed. Orks and Guard would get no save against a Bolter, and a lot of stuff went to a 6+

So in 2nd Ed, as a basic infantry weapon, Bolters were pretty good, in the hands of Marines.

Don't forget the super-powered ammunition of the DeathWatch, which has gone from amazing, to almost nonexistent.

did 2nd edition have bolters suffer -1 to hit when fired over half range though? Add cover to the equation and bolters werent all that effective unless up close

I remember a Dakkanaut in 7th who played Blood Angels and claimed he'd skip rolling for any of his Bolters because they were just that ineffective.
Overall in the 3rd to 7th framework bolters were indeed pretty weak. Yes, better than some other basic guns (shootas and lasguns) but worse than pulse rifles or gauss rifles (which had the Bolter profile + ability to hurt vehicles). The AP5 was pretty much irrelevant.
8th improved bolters a bit because of stratagems, more rerolls, more shots for Kombis, special rules to ignore rapid fire restrictions and Bonus AP on loyalists, but on, say, a battle sister they still weren't much to write home about I think. Bolt rifles had to steal the Tau rules to make them relevant (like Primaris overall were a big Blood Ravens style raid on the specializations of all other factions).

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I remember a Dakkanaut in 7th who played Blood Angels and claimed he'd skip rolling for any of his Bolters because they were just that ineffective.
Overall in the 3rd to 7th framework bolters were indeed pretty weak. Yes, better than some other basic guns (shootas and lasguns) but worse than pulse rifles or gauss rifles (which had the Bolter profile + ability to hurt vehicles). The AP5 was pretty much irrelevant.
8th improved bolters a bit because of stratagems, more rerolls, more shots for Kombis, special rules to ignore rapid fire restrictions and Bonus AP on loyalists, but on, say, a battle sister they still weren't much to write home about I think. Bolt rifles had to steal the Tau rules to make them relevant (like Primaris overall were a big Blood Ravens style raid on the specializations of all other factions).

your comments show how biased the game was to 3+ saves, because AP5 was anything by irrelevant if you weren't a space marine. Guard, guardians, orks, tyranids all lost their saves to bolters. That's pretty much every army that's not a space marine or necron from 3-7. If you played ANY other army, bolters destroyed you. Against marines, they were nothing. The inherent imbalance of the AP all or nothing system in a nutshell - it was just a marine vehicle.

And thus we have the eternal marine whinge cycle - our guns aren't strong enough to kill other marines - oh now they are and marines are too weak and need to be tougher, now our guns aren't good enough again ad nauseum. The effectiveness of a bolter is entirely related to how they overdo marines, because everyone defaults to comparing damage to marine targets. No one cares how effective or not they are against anything else, it's just a given if you have a non marine army that you should be destroyed by bolters. But if marines get too tough, or not tough enough, suddenly everyone loses their minds.


With the current resilience of marines, they are having to add extra rules and change stats for different bolter weapons so they don't look crap, which will inevitably see T6 terminators in the next edition because heavy bolt rifles are 'too good' against terminators now they're S5.

3e you had to remain stationary to get two shots from rapid fire which made it a defensive weapon - approaching infantry units within charge distance got double tapped.

4e and 5e gave you two shots on the move making it an offensive weapon where the controlling player would be rewarded for pushing their units into counter-charge range.


The 24" single shot range was also something you appreciated when playing Eldar or similar. In those editions units often wanted to be immobile to employ heavy weapons, hug cover, hold objectives, etc.
Having your unengaged units able to reach out and inflict chip damage did help and it took quite a while for many units in older editions to cover that distance.

From 3rd through 7th, the bolter was S4, ap5, 24” rapid fire.

In 3rd, that was 2 shots at 12” if you stood still or one shot at max range. If you moved it was one shot at 12”. If you didn’t move for the shooting bonus you were considered spending the whole turn shooting and could not assault. Not good for firepower on the move. And if you wanted to be in CC, you could not get full effect. You could get one shot off and charge, which was good as basic marines didn’t have pistols at the time. Worked OK for static fire, but not for gunning on the go. And you were probably better assaulting then rapid fireing.

4th you could always shoot twice at 12” regardless if you moved. If you stood still you could shoot once out to max range instead if you wanted. No assaults allowed if you shot at all. No sidearms for marines in the basic codex. You could pile out of a rhino and double-tap. This replaced the rhino rush for those still using tacticals. Although 4th was not the best time to be in a transport…

5th and 6th didn’t care if you moved or stood still. 2 shots at half range or one from half to max. The change from 12” to half didn’t make a difference for the humble bolter, but helped other guns. Still could not assault after shooting rapid fire, but every marine was packing a pistol at this point.

7th and afterwords you could double shot at under half range, and you could now assault with them. No more restrictions.

8th added the number of shots to the type. Everything previous was just RF-1. We also went from AP5 to AP-0 with the switch back to armor mods. We also got deep into super special bespoke bolters for everyone, so it gets hard to talk about the humble gun that started us down this path.

Edit
(Bit of a repeat to prior posts, took my time thumbing through rulebooks)

 tauist wrote:
did 2nd edition have bolters suffer -1 to hit when fired over half range though? Add cover to the equation and bolters werent all that effective unless up close

Not that many weapons had -1 to hit at long range - that was generally reserved for low tech weapons like crossbows or thematically close range weapons like shotguns.

Space marines were at their best in 2nd edition sitting in cover at long range. Negative hit modifiers for incoming attacks into cover, and the benefit of rapid fire, while a heavy weapon (with targeter) was hidden in the unit was pretty effective all the time. Closing down to short range was always risky - less bolter shots on the move, no moving and firing heavy weapons and less chance of cover, best off leaving that to assault marines and landspeeders.

Back on topic, 2nd ed was a high point for the bolter (in the hands of a marine). Relative to other armies only really the shuriken catapult outdid it.

 Hellebore wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I remember a Dakkanaut in 7th who played Blood Angels and claimed he'd skip rolling for any of his Bolters because they were just that ineffective.
Overall in the 3rd to 7th framework bolters were indeed pretty weak. Yes, better than some other basic guns (shootas and lasguns) but worse than pulse rifles or gauss rifles (which had the Bolter profile + ability to hurt vehicles). The AP5 was pretty much irrelevant.
8th improved bolters a bit because of stratagems, more rerolls, more shots for Kombis, special rules to ignore rapid fire restrictions and Bonus AP on loyalists, but on, say, a battle sister they still weren't much to write home about I think. Bolt rifles had to steal the Tau rules to make them relevant (like Primaris overall were a big Blood Ravens style raid on the specializations of all other factions).

your comments show how biased the game was to 3+ saves, because AP5 was anything by irrelevant if you weren't a space marine. Guard, guardians, orks, tyranids all lost their saves to bolters. That's pretty much every army that's not a space marine or necron from 3-7. If you played ANY other army, bolters destroyed you. Against marines, they were nothing. The inherent imbalance of the AP all or nothing system in a nutshell - it was just a marine vehicle.

While you're not wrong I always found it weird about the old system that 5+ saves were already very bad anyway. Yes, nearly every weapon in the game but the basic CC-weapons ignored 5+ and 6+ saves, but they were already bad saves to begin with (especially the Orks' t-shirt). So, I'd say in the game you either put your units in cover, getting a 4+ or 5+ depending on edition, or just accepted that your units are usually naked.
You're of course right about Space Marine bias. The only reason the heavy bolter always was considered a bad weapon was because of its Ap4 that got ignored by any 3+.

Ignoring a 5+ save is a 50% boost in lethality.
That’s significant.

I was going to say the high point for bolters was probably 4th edition. They benefited from the contemporary AP paradigm against light troops, but unlike 3rd they could move and fire. It was also before stats started ballooning in 5th, so the environment was a bit better for more modest weapons.

The other era that bolters were doing nicely in was the 8.5 era. Iirc Marines got a couple bonuses like a pip to AP and firing twice at full range, or something like that.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
Ignoring a 5+ save is a 50% boost in lethality.
That’s significant.

Yeah losing that in 8th really stung for all the GEQ vs. MEQ number crunching.

Bolters (and every other small arm in 40k, since so many are really just bolters with some sort of twist) have had a long history of being good, but only in enough volume and even then only into infantry. And the standard 15 points per bolter marine for most of 4th-7th wasn't really enough volume. In 4th-7th, under the old all or nothing AP system and before the damage stat, 6 plasma gun hits would kill 5 marines out of cover and it took 30 bolter hits to do the same. So the one plasma gun guy was doing the work of half the rest of the squad. I know marines as targets is a bit of a meme, but it's one of the few things that both are goodish at killing at the same time. Against AV 10-12 or the common T6 3+ or 2+ save monstrous creature the plasma gun pulls staggeringly ahead of the bolters. While a single bolter is not actually any better at killing guardsmen than a plasma gun (though much cheaper and with no gets hot/hazardous risks), which isn't going to help the "bolters suck" perception.

The other thing is, the unit archetype that bolters are actually good at killing, swarm infantry, is something only some armies even have. IG, Orks, GSC, 'nids, that's kinda it isn't it? At least for those armies where people regularly build into that? Kroot are pretty swarmy, but Kroot enjoyers are only a sub-set of Tau players. And swarm armies are rarer for the $$$ cost and extra hobby time to boot. Nearly every army had an AV 10-12 vehicle, a Monstrous Creature or Marine or Terminator level infantry unit that plasma guns would be good into so you could expect them to be doing good work game after game into whoever you fight.

Not helping things is that GW seems to think that these kinds of "only really good into swarm infantry and okay into marines" guns are what we should be building our armies around (troop choices/Battleline). It's just too narrow a target profile to make the core of your army. If I'm going to spam one unit as my rank and file it needs to be good into at least a lot of things, like 10th ed Tau Breachers or SM Hellblasters.

The one time I can think of where that worked "as intended" was the 5th ed Space Wolves codex, where Grey Hunters actually delivered on that "good at everything, both shooting and melee" that Tacticals have been billed as for ages. And even there, the bolter was just one of like four or five parts of the unit that made it work (a close combat weapon to go with the pistol that normal Tacticals didn't get, the counter-attack ability so they were just as happy being charged as charging, the ability to take both a tooled up sergeant and a Wulfen with a lot of Rending attacks for even more good in melee, the option to take two special weapons instead of one special and one heavy so you didn't have to worry about the heavy weapon working poorly with the squad wanting to move and the whole thing was pretty under costed).

Primarius going to Xenos style all matching guns made the one to one mismatch between bolters and other guns really obvious. It's pretty telling that the latest dataslate for 10th just straight doubled the shot count on Intercessors for only 1 point per model cost increase and my reaction was "maybe their worth while for anti-infantry now". Horus Hersey also provides an interesting case study in trying to make bolter marines feel useful in the marine game, though I'm not sure I like how they went about it personally. HH makes you run all bolter squads, does a variant on the old "only troops can hold objectives" rule, which it doesn't give to the special weapon squads. It's 3k standard size and bolter marines are 10 points each so slapping 50-60 into a list for scoring doesn't block you from taking the actually cool stuff too bad. And they get an extra shot each if they stand still. But they also made terminators and most elite marines 2 wounds so bolters are still bad into all the cool stuff and 10 point marines pew pewing 10 point marines is a lot of dice rolling for little points dying. I'm not sure how the non-marines they've included are supposed to exist in a world with 10 point boplter marines. From what I hear Solar Aux, is super under powered and ad mech infantry that isn't super cyborgs is in a bad place too.

oooo man, 2e storm bolters. Did the terminators have targeters with them? I think they did.
BS5, +1 to hit because of targeters, rapid fire while standing still. Man o man, one thing 40k really messed up was removing improved BS/WS from veteran/elite soldier types.

 tauist wrote:
did 2nd edition have bolters suffer -1 to hit when fired over half range though? Add cover to the equation and bolters werent all that effective unless up close

They had +1 at 0-12, nothing from 12-24.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BanjoJohn wrote:
oooo man, 2e storm bolters. Did the terminators have targeters with them? I think they did.
BS5, +1 to hit because of targeters, rapid fire while standing still. Man o man, one thing 40k really messed up was removing improved BS/WS from veteran/elite soldier types.

Stormbolters were like bolters but with a sustained fire dice (1/6 chance of 1 shot, 1/6 chance of jamming, 1/6 chance of 3 shots, 1/2 chance of 2 shots).

Basic, support, grenades


CCW, pistols, Hvy Weapons





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Note rapid fire was a marine rule not a weapon rule.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Ignoring a 5+ save is a 50% boost in lethality.
That’s significant.

In theory yes, but when nearly every weapon has 5+ (and the ones' that don't fire dozens of shots) it's really not that important. Usually it also comes with a T3 body that will already take more wounds than others. I'll admit that's a bit of changing the goalpost of my last post, but it's what I was probably after when I described 5+ saves as bad.

I guess we saw what happened in 8th when 5+ units were finally allowed to make their saves against a variety of weapons - guard went in pretty strong, but even then they were soon overshadowed just by the amount of shots (and GW spreading Ap-1 like candy in 9th).

I've said before, but being told on my introductory 3rd edition game that Marines effectively had a 3+ ward save but DE got nothing felt... kind of busted.

With that said, I don't think bolters have been much good since then. (I guess 8.5 but thats because Marines were busted in general.)

I mean even versus GEQ - the amount of shots needed to clear out guard/gaunts/orks etc made it kind of prohibitive. You are generally better served charging, winning the combat and then cutting down the whole squad.

8th and 9th with buffs and strats could do a LOT of work. Chuck enough dice with re-rolls, even just RR 1s, you could force a good number of saves.

As for armor saves, 3rd wasn’t too bad for damage proliferation, but I recall a lot of chatter around 5th+ that marines were being over charged for their 3+ save, which was functionality worthless. People were often spamming bikes or scouts for troops.

Tyel wrote:
I've said before, but being told on my introductory 3rd edition game that Marines effectively had a 3+ ward save but DE got nothing felt... kind of busted.

The AP system put fairly large steps between the right and wrong weapons for the target.

Equal-ish points of marines vs DE in an exchange of small arms match would favor the marines 3:1*, or 2:1 if the DE had light cover, while the DE would lose half as many points to something like an earthshaker barrage.
(*with the old S3 splinter weapons)

The 'correct' amount of cover on a table being a somewhat ill-defined thing.

 Nevelon wrote:
...but I recall a lot of chatter around 5th+ that marines were being over charged for their 3+ save, which was functionality worthless. People were often spamming bikes or scouts for troops.

5e made it a lot easier to get 4+ cover saves which watered down the value of power armour and carapace armour, along with ongoing decreases in the costs of heavy and power weapons.

But in more practical terms the basic SM tactical squad itself was just not particularly good in an edition that placed a high premium on your scoring troops choices - most other 3+ factions were perfectly content with their battle sisters, plague marines, BA assault troops, grey hunters, etc.

Partially because they baked in special/heavy costs pushing you to take 10 models. 100pts for one plasma gun or 190pts for a 10 man las-plas unit looked pretty grim when the 4e books were running double las/plas at 200, and the outlook didn't improve with the soon released wolves codex and their double-discounted troops.

 Insularum wrote:

 tauist wrote:
did 2nd edition have bolters suffer -1 to hit when fired over half range though? Add cover to the equation and bolters werent all that effective unless up close

Not that many weapons had -1 to hit at long range - that was generally reserved for low tech weapons like crossbows or thematically close range weapons like shotguns.

Space marines were at their best in 2nd edition sitting in cover at long range. Negative hit modifiers for incoming attacks into cover, and the benefit of rapid fire, while a heavy weapon (with targeter) was hidden in the unit was pretty effective all the time. Closing down to short range was always risky - less bolter shots on the move, no moving and firing heavy weapons and less chance of cover, best off leaving that to assault marines and landspeeders.

Back on topic, 2nd ed was a high point for the bolter (in the hands of a marine). Relative to other armies only really the shuriken catapult outdid it.

Ah yes, apologies. Seems I confused KT18 with 2nd edition tohit mods

So, would a marine in 2nd edition had 2+ to hit with bolters at under 12"? That's brutal. 2+/3+ against softer targets and even 2+/4+ vs Orks, and no save? Sheesh

IIRC there were also more negative mods, for things like obscured targets and fast moving models. So it wasn’t just a flat number based on the shooter.

 Nevelon wrote:
IIRC there were also more negative mods, for things like obscured targets and fast moving models. So it wasn’t just a flat number based on the shooter.

Sure, but was thinking of baseline for hitting (slow) targets in the open

Tyel wrote:
I've said before, but being told on my introductory 3rd edition game that Marines effectively had a 3+ ward save but DE got nothing felt... kind of busted.

With that said, I don't think bolters have been much good since then. (I guess 8.5 but thats because Marines were busted in general.)

I mean even versus GEQ - the amount of shots needed to clear out guard/gaunts/orks etc made it kind of prohibitive. You are generally better served charging, winning the combat and then cutting down the whole squad.

Emphasis mine.

That was definitely felt like a design goal of the 3rd ed paradigm. Marines would win the firefight with lesser models, given a bit of time. But if you wanted a quick elimination then assaulting was the way to go, and bring your Flamer on the way in because that thing did nasty work against GEQ.

Remember the DE etc. still got their armor saves in combat though.

In 2nd edition 40K it took an average of 4 boltgun hits to kill 1 Space Marine.

A squad of 10 Space Marines rapid firing boltguns at Space Marines at a distance of 12-24" with no other modifiers would kill 3.333 on average.

How does it pan out in other editions?

Oktoglokk wrote:
In 2nd edition 40K it took an average of 4 boltgun hits to kill 1 Space Marine.

A squad of 10 Space Marines rapid firing boltguns at Space Marines at a distance of 12-24" with no other modifiers would kill 3.333 on average.

How does it pan out in other editions?

In 7th...

10 Marines, within 12"
20 shots
40/3 hits
20/3 wounds
20/9 failed saves, 2.22 dead MEQ

10 Marines, 12"-24"
10 shots
20/3 hits
10/3 wounds
10/9 failed saves, 1.11 dead MEQ


In 8th against a W2 Marine, but with Bolter Discipline...

10 Marines out to 24" (if standing still)
20 shots
40/3 hits
20/3 wounds
20/9 failed saves outside of cover, 10/9 against a covered Marine
1.11 dead MEQ (.56 if they're in cover)

10th Edition
10 Bolter Marines
20 Shots
BS 3+ yields = 40/3 Hits
Wound 50% = 20/3 Wounds
Fail 1/3 Saves = 20/9 Wounds
1.11 Dead Marines

10 Bolt Rifle Marines
20 Shots
BS 3+ yields = 40/3 Hits (50/3 if Stationary due to Heavy)
Wound 50% = 20/3 Wounds (50/6 if Stationary)
Fail 1/2 Saves = 20/6 Wounds (50/12 if Stationary)
1.66 Dead Marines (2.08 Dead if Stationary)

AP -1 and +1 BS kill half a Marine each for Bolt Rifles over Bolters.

One thing to note about bolters and other small arms is that the attrition effect was heavily influenced by the wound allocation rules of each edition - you might only lose a single model to a salvo but there was the risk it was someone important.

 alextroy wrote:
10th Edition
10 Bolter Marines
20 Shots
BS 3+ yields = 40/3 Hits
Wound 50% = 20/3 Wounds
Fail 1/3 Saves = 20/9 Wounds
1.11 Dead Marines

10 Bolt Rifle Marines
20 Shots
BS 3+ yields = 40/3 Hits (50/3 if Stationary due to Heavy)
Wound 50% = 20/3 Wounds (50/6 if Stationary)
Fail 1/2 Saves = 20/6 Wounds (50/12 if Stationary)
1.66 Dead Marines (2.08 Dead if Stationary)

AP -1 and +1 BS kill half a Marine each for Bolt Rifles over Bolters.

Bolt Rifles also have that handy extra range (I think? They were defo 30” when they first came out). So there’s a chance of them getting at least one volley more than Boltguns, and have (had) a longer Rapid Fire Range. Not a huge difference, but enough to muddle the numbers somewhat in different editions.

The bolter vs. bolt rifle topic also needs to include unit equipment options. Basic bolters are normally paired with a special/heavy, while bolt rifles get an AGL at best as backup.

It’s the primaris bolter. Bigger, better, with no real drawbacks over it’s predecessor. And probably reflect on the table what the lore said it should always have been.