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Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I think the "If CWE Jetbikes were 4+" is an underrated answer.

The misprint from Rogue Trader must be preserved at all costs!

Seriously though, IK exist, and with them there is a hard, hard break point on S5 vs S6. Actually there are a lot of AV 12 vehicle/walkers and that makes long range S6 SOOOOOOO much better than S5. Heavy bolters could be free and I still wouldn't use them because of the movement problem.

as much as I dont like you I thought that was funny. All this over powered stuff from missprints.

 Dyslexican32 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Can't remember if it's been suggested, but give Heavy Bolters specialist ammo? Being able to choose between AP3, Ignores Cover, and Poisoned (2+) would certainly make the Heavy Bolter a much better generalist weapon.

Im coll withthat, but they need to be paid for upgrades, not necessarily super expensive but you need to pay points for those for sure. Either way I think they need to get them away from the way heavy weapons currently work.

Why do they need to be paid for upgrades? The point is that no one takes Heavy Bolters because they're currently awful, that isn't solved by making them more expensive.

There is nothing wrong with the heavy bolter.

If it doesnt keep up with the wierdly named weapons 40K has been flooded with in the last three years it is because codex design has taken a nosedive and too many overpowered toys have entered play.

Give me a heavy bolter on a ten man tactical squad and I am happy. You can stick your Zylex pattern metagravwaveautocarbinette with autodominator shells somewhere I cant see them.

 Orlanth wrote:

If it doesnt keep up with the wierdly named weapons 40K has been flooded with in the last three years it is because codex design has taken a nosedive and too many overpowered toys have entered play.

It didn't keep up before that either.

I tend to take Heavy Bolters as standard, either in Devastators or Tactical Squads.

 Orlanth wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the heavy bolter.

If it doesnt keep up with the wierdly named weapons 40K has been flooded with in the last three years it is because codex design has taken a nosedive and too many overpowered toys have entered play.

Give me a heavy bolter on a ten man tactical squad and I am happy. You can stick your Zylex pattern metagravwaveautocarbinette with autodominator shells somewhere I cant see them.

Other than the fact that when you fire it, nothing happens, its perfectly fine.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Dyslexican32 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Can't remember if it's been suggested, but give Heavy Bolters specialist ammo? Being able to choose between AP3, Ignores Cover, and Poisoned (2+) would certainly make the Heavy Bolter a much better generalist weapon.

Im coll withthat, but they need to be paid for upgrades, not necessarily super expensive but you need to pay points for those for sure. Either way I think they need to get them away from the way heavy weapons currently work.

Why do they need to be paid for upgrades? The point is that no one takes Heavy Bolters because they're currently awful, that isn't solved by making them more expensive.

Outside of taking some formation that makes them free upgrades, I am always hesitant to standardly make something free just because. I think Specialist ammo would make them better as well, However they thing for me that really makes them pointless, is the way heavy weapons work and severely restricting your movement. I think Heavy bolters have their place, again against nids, orcs or other lightly armored targets, but no they will never compete with scat bikes and other silly stuff like that. I take Heavy bolters against orcs and nids on a regular basis and they do fine. They havea place, the problem is those two armies aren't the hot lists right now so you don't see them as much. If either where strong I think you would see Heavy Bolters more.

So I've finally got around to using the poison 2+ apd6 hh heavy bolters, and sweet jebus they are good, I'll be taking a full hs squad with them now, totally worth it, so I'm thinking, maybe special issue ammo added to bolters for 5pts

Poison 2+
Ap 3 range 42"
AP2 gets hot
Ignores cover

I'd use that in a second

 Orlanth wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the heavy bolter.

If it doesnt keep up with the wierdly named weapons 40K has been flooded with in the last three years it is because codex design has taken a nosedive and too many overpowered toys have entered play.

Give me a heavy bolter on a ten man tactical squad and I am happy. You can stick your Zylex pattern metagravwaveautocarbinette with autodominator shells somewhere I cant see them.

Ah yes, because the Heavy Bolter actually had a value at some point...
Oh wait, it didn't.

 Dyslexican32 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Dyslexican32 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Can't remember if it's been suggested, but give Heavy Bolters specialist ammo? Being able to choose between AP3, Ignores Cover, and Poisoned (2+) would certainly make the Heavy Bolter a much better generalist weapon.

Im coll withthat, but they need to be paid for upgrades, not necessarily super expensive but you need to pay points for those for sure. Either way I think they need to get them away from the way heavy weapons currently work.

Why do they need to be paid for upgrades? The point is that no one takes Heavy Bolters because they're currently awful, that isn't solved by making them more expensive.

Outside of taking some formation that makes them free upgrades, I am always hesitant to standardly make something free just because. I think Specialist ammo would make them better as well, However they thing for me that really makes them pointless, is the way heavy weapons work and severely restricting your movement. I think Heavy bolters have their place, again against nids, orcs or other lightly armored targets, but no they will never compete with scat bikes and other silly stuff like that. I take Heavy bolters against orcs and nids on a regular basis and they do fine. They havea place, the problem is those two armies aren't the hot lists right now so you don't see them as much. If either where strong I think you would see Heavy Bolters more.

I've been playing since 5th and the HB has pretty much always been a useless weapon because of cover. It's very easy to get a cover save, so the AP4 hardly matters. At best it's pushing you down from a 4 to a 5. Additionally strength 5 sucks, it's not strong enough to threaten most vehicles and doesn't ID anything.

Would HB be more valued if we went to a '6 always wounds' chart? Makes HB>AC not just for T1-4, but also T 9&10.

For super crazy, how about adding a 6 always glances rule too (maybe unless that 6 was also a pen)?

I feel like making them always wound and glance on a 6 still makes them useless when instead you can usually take grav spam like we do now and still do better. I would say taking special amo as upgrades would be a much more versatile solution. I for one am not really a fan of blanket rules that auto wound and glance on everything. A few weapons it makes sense for, like gause but most others don't.

What makes sense has no bearing in this game at all.

I meant in game terms, Why would we have two weapons that do the same thing. (relatively) What would be the point to change something to fill a role we already have.

I've said it many times now, but there is literally no mathematical niche for this weapon. The whole game needs a revamp.

The niche is killing medium infantry. If there were a very prolific threat that fell into its viability range there wouldn't be a problem.

Ergo, windrider jetbikes having a 4+.

What would make me to take HB? Hm...

How about Heavy 6?

Go back to 5th Ed Tacticals squads; They got a Heavy Bolter, Multi Melta or Missile Launcher for free as their heavy (but needed 10 men). So, Tactical Squads get Heavy Bolters for free if they are 10 men strong (not 5 men), and they are reduced to 5pts across the board and armies.

Still useless with six shots or free. Heavy and only S5 kills it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
The niche is killing medium infantry. If there were a very prolific threat that fell into its viability range there wouldn't be a problem.

Ergo, windrider jetbikes having a 4+.

That's a non-niche in 7th ed.

Are you saying that if Windrider jetbikes had a 4+ save, folks wouldn't spam them?

Also, I beg to differ that S5 is useless - Tau get quite a bit of mileage out of S5 AP5 guns. Then again, they have a lot of volume.

jade_angel wrote:
Are you saying that if Windrider jetbikes had a 4+ save, folks wouldn't spam them?

Also, I beg to differ that S5 is useless - Tau get quite a bit of mileage out of S5 AP5 guns. Then again, they have a lot of volume.

But Windriders don't have that save. They have a 3+. Even if they had a 4+, the heavy bolter is so poor against other lists that I still couldn't justify it. Tau have S5 on their BASIC gun, not a precious heavy slot.

salvo 2/4 would be nice, although I think the problem is less 'the gun' and more 'a decreasing number of 4+ save infantry being taken'

 Brennonjw wrote:
salvo 2/4 would be nice, although I think the problem is less 'the gun' and more 'a decreasing number of 4+ save infantry being taken'

And the gun sucks at HPing out vehicles. That's probably the single biggest knock on it. AV 12 is immune, whereas AV 12 is dead meat vs scatterlasers.

Martel732 wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
There is nothing wrong with the heavy bolter.

If it doesnt keep up with the wierdly named weapons 40K has been flooded with in the last three years it is because codex design has taken a nosedive and too many overpowered toys have entered play.

Give me a heavy bolter on a ten man tactical squad and I am happy. You can stick your Zylex pattern metagravwaveautocarbinette with autodominator shells somewhere I cant see them.

Other than the fact that when you fire it, nothing happens, its perfectly fine.

Just like the bolter, and storm bolter!
Its the bottom tier heavy weapon, it's the "Ill take these sponsons to protect myself from weapon destroyed". Any adjustments to the weapon will adjust the point cost, and then you wind up with another autocannon/assault cannon.

I think a bigger issue is that devs can take heavy bolters, and not autocannons. Heavy bolters are cheap anti infantry, they are for piling on wounds and taking out anything lighter than meq with ease. There are plenty of crappy weapons in 40k that fall into the odd area of useless/outshined line the heavy bolter (which is outshined by assault cannons (still never see them) and autocannons (freaking everywhere). Look at various power weapons, ever seen a power lance, what about a power maul? Aside from models that have to take power mauls, no one ever takes them, because lightning claws do it better.

Heavy bolter is the ranged power maul.

 Brennonjw wrote:
salvo 2/4 would be nice, although I think the problem is less 'the gun' and more 'a decreasing number of 4+ save infantry being taken'

I agree.

If T3-4, 4+ infantry in the open was considered a threat, The HB would get a lot more love. It has a niche. It does a good job at it. But the niche is irrelevant in today’s meta, and it doesn’t have a backup job.

Most 4+ troops hide in cover. The ones that don’t (necron warriors come to mind) have other tricks (resurrection protocols)

I’ve been playing a touch of 30k lately and some things there were nice on HBs. Suspensor Web, which gives it the option of been an assault weapon with half the range. Basically a better salvo. The other thing was fielding them on vet. tac squads, and getting the sniper rule on them. Still not sure it was worth the points, but I did get some use out of them.

I think the main problem with the HB is its price. HB are pretty much everywhere and that makes it hard to buff with out significantly buffing most units. The issue is weapon competition. Why pay points for something average when I can pay a tiny bit more for something always effective.

40k should move away from standard point costs for items and adopt a per unit upgrade cost. The different units often get different utility out of builds than others. There is no reason it should be universial and the price should be factored into the parent unit. That said, HB themselves should become free in most cases for infantry. They will never really compete with higher slots because tehy are so easy to find on other platforms. For SM it should be something like Free HB, 5 point MM, 10 point ML (auto get flak), 15 point PC, and 20 point LC.

Now every weapon fills a niche. The HB doesn't sync well with most weapons except for more HB. In a tacticals squad who should usually be advancing doesn't seem like a liability because you get the weapon for free and it adds a capability. In a Dev squad you can utilize a 4 man HB squad withoout breaking you bank. The MM is also reduced to help compete with the high tier weapons. Paired with a MG, it can be very effective while, a quad MM squad could function as great area denial. The ML being the good all arounder is reduced in price and buffed to off set the loss of its ability to instant kill vehicles as well as being one shot. Everyone can agree as well Flak upgrade now is completely worthless. The PC and the LC have always had a place at their current cost.

This is what needs to happen across the board. HB are hardly alone in the dud upgrade category and you cant just look at one item and expect to be anything more than a band aid. Every unit has to rethink its weapon costs to create situations where all the upgrades have a use while still maintaining fluff.

The thing is that changing the points per unit doesn't take into account the fact that the unit already paid points for their ballistic skill and the weapon the heavy bolter replaced.

So when you see a 10 point upgrade for both the guardsman and space marine, remember that it is really an 11 point weapon for the guardsman and a 13 point weapon for the marine. (Approximately)

Same thing holds true for pretty much every weapon upgrade in the game.

 gwarsh41 wrote:


I think a bigger issue is that devs can take heavy bolters, and not autocannons. Heavy bolters are cheap anti infantry, they are for piling on wounds and taking out anything lighter than meq with ease. There are plenty of crappy weapons in 40k that fall into the odd area of useless/outshined line the heavy bolter (which is outshined by assault cannons (still never see them) and autocannons (freaking everywhere). Look at various power weapons, ever seen a power lance, what about a power maul? Aside from models that have to take power mauls, no one ever takes them, because lightning claws do it better.

Heavy bolter is the ranged power maul.

Power Mauls are much more common than Heavy Bolters, because S6 means wounding most infantry on 2+ and threatening rear armour 10. The Power Maul is the Power Weapon of choice on most MEQ models since the only thing the Power Sword performs better against is T4 3+ armour, and even then it's not by a huge margin.

Only if they strike at the same initiative or lower, if you're slower than your enemy, you're better off taking a power axe.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Only if they strike at the same initiative or lower, if you're slower than your enemy, you're better off taking a power axe.

For BA, it's worth having a mix. Power mauls can knock HPs off AV 13 walkers on the charge, and I think that's worthwhile.