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Jokearo are the same in the GK codex as they were previously.

A non-sentient being that can make highly complex technological doodads.

Made by the old ones during the war in heaven to ummm...I honestly have no idea what they hoped to accomplish against the Necrons and C'Tan with the Jokaero.

There's only 1 million Space Marines in the entire Imperium. If even 20% of those are Captains, who can get digital weapons, that's an item available to only 200,000 people... in an Imperium of uncounted trillions.

That's a mere drop in the bucket so, yeah, very rare.

 Psienesis wrote:
There's only 1 million Space Marines in the entire Imperium. If even 20% of those are Captains, who can get digital weapons, that's an item available to only 200,000 people... in an Imperium of uncounted trillions.

That's a mere drop in the bucket so, yeah, very rare.

20% is a bit off. Each captain leads a company of 100 men, so you are looking at closer to 1%.

If you go by the 1,000 chapters of 1,000 marines numbers,
And each chapter has 10 captains (10,000 total)
Plus your chapter masters (one per chapter, so another 1,000, bringing us to 11,000)

You get an even lower number. Of course, that doesn't count chaplains or other marines who can get them, or non-codex adherent chapters. Still a tiny percentage of people. And that's the people who can get them, not all of them do.

Exactly my point, I was being *very* generous with the 20% number. That digital weapons are available to SM Captains does not make them, in any way, a common bit of tech in the Imperium.

If you take the total number of Inquisitors, SM Captains, Chapter Masters, Rogue Traders, ranking AdMech Tech-Priests, Ordo Assassinorum personnel, planetary nobles and other dignitaries... all of whom conceivably have the resources to acquire digital weapons... you're talking less than 1/1000th of 1 percent of the Imperium.

nomotog wrote:I think the best answer is that they would just rather jump right into melee when they run out of ammo. A barehanded SM is more deadly then a lasrifle.

This can't possibly be universally true. Sure they're deadly but but if you can drop just one genestealer out of the horde, maul a single ork or better yet kill one of the two howling banshees before they get to melee range your chances of survival- even for a space marine- just went up considerably.

purplefood wrote:Bolters are a better weapon for the Space Marines because they are, in effect, shock troops. They rely on psychological terror for a lot of their work. Bolters are loud, flashy and their effect on the human body is downright terrifying. Las weapons would not have the same effect.

Again, I am not advocating replacing bolters. I am merely positing that carrying an nigh infinite ammo source for a comparatively cheap, reliable, compact weapon makes carrying that weapon a extremely good choice. Doubly so when said weapon can be carried in addition to any standard armament.

Like I said I've getting back into 40K and one thing I did notice in regards to the current marine codex, contrary to older material, is that most space marines appear to no longer carry a knife (let alone a sword sized one). I note that Space Wolves do carry close combat weapons/knifes which has profound effect on their melee capacity, but the point is that GW must be aware of this. Does this mean most marines don't carry a knife? This seems absurd and yet the in game effect is so profound (not to mention used in Space Wolves) it seems impossible that GW simply 'forgot'. Clearly they don't want marines with 2 attacks base but I'm wondering if they'd scar the fluff like that simply to support the desired rules. Anyway the thing that stood out to me is that if they're no longer equipped with a 'knife' by default the melee option gets a lot weaker.

While lasguns may have theoretically infinite ammo, in actuality its not going to be like that.

Those battery packs take time to recharge. yes you can recharge them in a fire or with direct exposure to light, but one reduces the pack life considerably and the other takes too long.

None of these abilities are practical for a Space Marine, who has 90% of engagements being very quick and decisive affairs. He is very rarely going to run out of ammo for his bolter, so lugging around a las weapon is just wasted energy.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Those battery packs take time to recharge. yes you can recharge them in a fire or with direct exposure to light, but one reduces the pack life considerably and the other takes too long.

Hence you run it off the fusion plant in the marine backpack.

 Grey Templar wrote:
He is very rarely going to run out of ammo for his bolter, so lugging around a las weapon is just wasted energy.

First there's no 'lugging'. Laspistols in the fluff (not the heroic sized miniatures) are tiny, tiny things, the bulk of which is made up of the handle and batter- both of which you're doing away with here. It literally would be like strapping a small mag light to the back of the marines hand or side of the helmet. In fact given the size of bolter rounds it's entirely possible the required las components would take up less space than a single bolter shell. For the added advantage even a single las shot could bring it seems worth it.

And let's face it, while marines don't plan for their bolters to be rendered useless it must happen. A shot damages it, it's knocked from the marines grasp or a simple jam could occur and that's before you even consider ammunition exhaustion. Drop pods can be destroyed, positions lost or supply interrupted. I mean, it's war- if ever there was a time and place for plans to go awry, it's in the middle of a war. Then there's the hordes. The most common reason a marine might run out of ammunition is simple number of targets- perhaps a tyranid swarm or ork horde. In this case even one extra dead xenos for the Emperor justifies it.

This is also before you even think about marines who otherwise lack ranged capacity at all. There's gotta be a way to rig one onto a close combat terminator. Sure you're a bad ass in melee but even you would prefer to face two genestealers over three.

Lastly marines are valuable. Very, very valuable. They take a phenomenal amount of time and effort to recruit, train and equip. I can accept that at the time of Rogue Trader it wasn't really something they thought of (and hence it's not in there) but I don't get why people think it's a bad idea or not worthwhile.

The main problem is that, at least in the fluff, a basic lasweapon (not something like a lascannon or multilas) is simply ineffective against *most* foes that Space Marines face.

Orks, Tyranid, Necrons... other space-gribblies we don't even have names for, like the gak that lives out in the Ghoul Stars... these things give not one single feth about a lasweapon. At most, you singed it.

Now, a digi-melta mounted on the back of a PA gauntlet... or a shoulder-mounted plasma pistol on a set of TDA? Now you're talking.

Why stop at las pistols? Marines should replace their bolters with multi-lasers. They are loud, flashy and pretty damn effective

S6 weapons all round? Yes please

I've, uh, actually done that in my current Dark Heresy campaign.

It's... heavily influenced by the Fallout series of video games (being set on a post-nuclear War World) and so the splinter-cults of the Mechanicus have gone down various paths of production.

The Brotherhood of Steel is a power-armored AdMech cult that totes multi-las and hellguns, attached to the powerplants in their PA.

Psienesis wrote:The main problem is that, at least in the fluff, a basic lasweapon (not something like a lascannon or multilas) is simply ineffective against *most* foes that Space Marines face.

Which is why you keep the bolter as your main armament. The las weapon would be a last resort or weapon of opportunity.

Psienesis wrote:Now, a digi-melta mounted on the back of a PA gauntlet... or a shoulder-mounted plasma pistol on a set of TDA? Now you're talking.

Digital weapons are of course too rare but otherwise sure. Plasma weapons require their own ammunition, in addition to power packs to utilise so you're back to carrying more ammo (not mention other plasma related issues). Think of the helmet/wrist mounted las as like a holdout pistol or boot knife. Probably not an ideal weapon under any circumstance but it gives you surprise, reach. Given the scarcity of marines vs cheapness of las weapons, if it gives a 1% better survival rate to a marine it seems worthwhile.

Flinty wrote:Why stop at las pistols? Marines should replace their bolters with multi-lasers. They are loud, flashy and pretty damn effective

S6 weapons all round? Yes please

Well here you run into the potential energy drain. There aren't any real numbers on how much power a marines pack puts out. We know it's enough to power a powerfist as well as maintain the marines systems and power those artificial muscles so a las pistol would be trivially easy to power. It could be that multilasers are indeed within that scope and hey, if you can get away with giving marines multilasers with little to no impact of their power generation then absolutely, do it. But we really just don't know what they can do, so I'm taking the lower end and arguing from there. Obviously you'd want to give the marines the most powerful weapon their armour can support that doesn't interfere with their regular operation.

But that brings up another interesting option- a hotshot weapon for marines. Even if it was a single shot it may well be worthwhile.

The thing with having a hold-out weapon is that the weapon has to be effective. In normal circumstances, a 5mm round fired point-blank into another human being's face from a three-inch derringer is going to be lethal... but won't be able to hit a guy twenty feet away with accuracy.

For a las-weapon to be hold-out-worthy, for a SM, it has to be effective against the thing you're shooting it with. If you're fighting other humans, as a Space Marine, your power-gauntleted fist is going to do more damage than a laspistol. In fact, the SM would probably be better served by smashing the laspistol against the other guy's leg, or head, thus probably shattering it, maybe even tearing it completely off, rather than shooting him.

Against something like an Ork Boss or Tyranid Carnofex or Necron Destroyer... a hold-out Las is a waste of time. The SM is better off engaging them in bare-fisted melee. The lasweapon simply doesn't have the stopping power.

Oh for sure. It's not a primary choice and it certainly wouldn't be worth much against a big hitter, but to be fair a marine attempting to punch/kick an ork warboss, carnifex or Necron destroyer to death is probably equally wasting his time. That's power weapon territory.

It would just give the marine a little edge- especially a helmet mounted version. Against say, eldar melee troopers it could be amazingly useful and if all you need to do is look at an ork to potentially blind it that's fine too. Any marine who has lost his weapon (possibly arm), been unable to reload or just needs an extra shot in a given direction would be in a much better position than one without it. Again, there's a trivial weight increase and the marine gains the ability to shoot a laser from his head.

As a holdout... sure it may not always work. Might not even work most of the time. But it costs nothing and sometimes it will work. That makes it worthwhile.

TBH, I think that's the concept behind the SM Combat Knife. If you're in that kind of situation, twenty inches of sharpened, mono-edged adamantine backed by the force that PA can push it makes a lot more sense. No risk of technological failure, it never runs out of ammo, and it can parry other hand-to-hand weapons that don't have a power field or similar upgrade.

It can also, with the force of a Space Marine behind it, punch through carapace armor, whereas a laspistol can't.

I think there is also the concern that lasweapons require too much maintenance in the field to rely on. While being technically simple, by Imperial standards, a lot can go wrong with a las weapon that renders it useless. The lens gets dirty or damaged, debris clogs the barrel/firing port, etc.

Botlers were the weapon of the Astartes legion back in the day, and being the Imperium and all, it is now.
Yes humans fought in it as well, but only after a while when the Emperor saw that his Astartes legion were starting to get lower in numbers as the crusade went on and even then they had autoguns and lasguns (what with manufacturing being less copy/paste and only super-religious rather than ultra-religious as in 40k)

We can always say that now (40k) they are shock troops that makes do-or-die drop into dangerous territories, face off terrible Xenos, and generally show up when the Guard gets beaten up it's almost not funny anymore. And if a few hundred thousands lasguns couldn't do it, might as well get a hundred bolters firing at the same time.

Remember what the line "In the best armour I shall clad them, with the mightiest of weapon I shall arm them (or something similar)" They were made to be the best of the best, so I figure that bolters were the most devastating rifle-type weapon available at the time, and that lasguns, while being a logistical dream, didn't had the punch and effect a bolter has.

Also, keep in mind that while bolters fire bullets,, they are more like mini-rockets that explodes after penetration than any standard bullet we know and use today, waayyy more knowledge put behind the bolts' creation than your standard autogun round.

In contrast, using the Dark Heresy RPG as reference, for a dollart (called Throne Gelts) you can get 20 autogun bullets, while a single bolt round cost 16 Thrones. And they are also rare. The weapon itself is a status symbol more than a devastating weapon (mind you, which it is of course) due to the demi-god like status of the Marines vis-a-vis the normal populace. Won't see ganger X waving a bolt pistol around, but las pistols and stub auto? Common sight due to (relative) ease of manufacture, reliability and availability.

 Psienesis wrote:
TBH, I think that's the concept behind the SM Combat Knife. If you're in that kind of situation, twenty inches of sharpened, mono-edged adamantine backed by the force that PA can push it makes a lot more sense. No risk of technological failure, it never runs out of ammo, and it can parry other hand-to-hand weapons that don't have a power field or similar upgrade.

A few things to consider. First, I'm not sure that marines (other than Space Wolves) even carry combat knives any more. The current codex does not list it as their wargear and by any definition what you're talking about here is certainly a close combat weapon. Secondly a knife is exceedingly short ranged compared to even a pistol and as I've pointed out several times killing Howling Banshee (insert your chosen melee powerhouse here) #3 before it gets to you so you can concentrate on #1 and 2# would be extremely helpful. Lastly again it costs virtually nothing and doesn't replace anything. Keep the bolter, keep the knife. Just add the las.

Where is the drawback??

I think there is also the concern that lasweapons require too much maintenance in the field to rely on. While being technically simple, by Imperial standards, a lot can go wrong with a las weapon that renders it useless. The lens gets dirty or damaged, debris clogs the barrel/firing port, etc.

The same applies to bolters, which are known to be significantly harder to maintain. Any environment that was so detrimental to las weaponry it became unreliable would be terrible for bolters.

We're starting to talk in circles though. At the end of the day you've got a valuable asset that can be made even more deadly, efficient and survivable for a trivial cost. It's like arguing that tank crews don't need sidearms because they've got a tank, they're not really meant to be using sidearms, sidearms aren't going to be useful against their primary targets... all true but if you value the crew (or your space marine) and you've already invested a ton into them a trivial cost backup weapon that might just save a life (not to mention your investment) is a small price to add to the already large bill. It's obvious that while not always useful, sometimes it is. Why not do it?

Fluffwise, Marines do carry combat knives. Its just not reflected in game.

Isn't that somewhat...well terrible? Or is it just GWs way of artificially limiting non-Space Wolf marine melee attacks?

Well, to be technical about it, they got bolt pistols, which count as a close combat weapon.

I suppose The Wolves gets a knife because hey, Viking..IN SPAAACE and all that.

That's what I mean though- if marines had two close combat weapons there would be a huge game effect. It's not the kind of trivial thing even the sloppy writers at GW would overlook.

Well, Marines area generalist army, having them with 2 CCW would tip the blaance too muhc and make tactical...too good in melee that might even overshadow the assault squads.

If you're fighting a Howling Banshee, who's dressed in the Eldar equivalent of carapace armor... your laspistol is useless.

You'd be better off letting her stab you in one of your two hearts or your third lung, and then smash her skull with a power armored head-butt.

I believe the consensus about the ccw issuse was that the normal combat knives marines carry are not really deadly enough to be classified as a separate CCW. CCWs are things like chainswords, ork choppas etc, which most marines dont carry. And before someone brings up plague marines, remember that plague knives count as CCW because of their poison attribute. But you dont really see any other knives counting as CCWs except when they are artifcats, or Dark eldar.

Otherwise surely most IG regiments also carry utility knives, why dont they get extra attacks?

I get what the point is of having a back-up weapon, I just don't think that a las-based weapon is going to be that back-up for a Space Marine, given the tendency for a standard lasweapon to be woefully underpowered against the sorts of foes Space Marines are likely to face.

Of course, PA would need to be modified to house integrated laser weapons, which would take a thousand years or more to see happen, but that is not that big of a hurdle.

I think, if the Imperium advances the hellgun technology far enough, the stuff the Storm Trooper Regiment carries, and can power it through the PA's reactor, then we'll be on to something. *This* is a las-weapon that is worthy of the Imperium's elite, and offers the stopping power and armor penetration that a Space Marine needs on the battlefield.

This is the sort of thing that could be built into a gauntlet, fire-by-sight helmet mount, or a shoulder-mounted blaster-cannon. It's powerful, it treats armor like paper, it's dread killy, and, if the suit can power it, it has nigh-unlimited ammunition.

DrDuckman wrote:

Otherwise surely most IG regiments also carry utility knives, why dont they get extra attacks?

They do carry knifes, or bayonets, they just don't have pistols to pair them with.

Psienesis wrote:If you're fighting a Howling Banshee, who's dressed in the Eldar equivalent of carapace armor... your laspistol is useless.

Carapace armour (and granted my memory has it as a 4+) has a decent chance of stopping bolt rounds doesn't it? Even so I'd still rather have a .22 to shoot at a charging gorilla than nothing.

Psienesis wrote:I think, if the Imperium advances the hellgun technology far enough, the stuff the Storm Trooper Regiment carries, and can power it through the PA's reactor, then we'll be on to something. *This* is a las-weapon that is worthy of the Imperium's elite, and offers the stopping power and armor penetration that a Space Marine needs on the battlefield.

Yes, that would be the ideal, but I discounted it after reading up about weapon durability, at least as you say in it's current form. In fact if it can defeat power armour better than a bolter there may well be missions it would be, even at current levels, a superior weapon to bolters. It all comes down to how much power the weapon can draw from the suit before it compromises the suits other functioning. A laspistol I'm sure wouldn't but maybe you could go as high as a hellgun. Certainly we know a hellgun pack can hold a charge of 200 shots and we already know that marines have charge storing backpacks (Devastators with lascannons). I don't know it's been explicitly stated anywhere but if you're going to have a custom backpack for a laser weapon with the fusion plant it would be the height of idiocy to not link them, so that excess power could recharge the lascannon. It would really be an adaptation of that technology, though you could make it far smaller due to a) it doesn't need to store as much energy b) it will recharge faster. And given that you get 200 shots without a recharging fusion plant that seems like plenty for an average strike force marine. They can't seriously be carrying more than that in bolt ammunition anyway, they're ludicrously large. I think this hellgun idea is where it's at, possibly even replacing bolters

Armadeus wrote:They do carry knifes, or bayonets, they just don't have pistols to pair them with.

That's it. Once upon a time marines did carry knives and bolt pistols but some where along the line the knife was stripped. And as people have said, it's not like it's a small weapon. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the reason they removed them is for balance but if I saw a normal man with a sword in one hand and a marine 'knife' in the other as far as I'm concerned he's got two ways to kill me.

Carapace can stop a bolt-round, sure. It's almost definitely going to stop a laspistol.

At least if you let Banshee 1 of 3 stab you, you can rip her arms off and impale her on her own sword sticking out of your chest and user as a huma- er, Eldar shield against the other two. Maybe spin around and stab one of the other ones with the business end of her sword/singing spear/whatever sticking out of your back, and now you have two recently-living shields.

 Kain wrote:
Made by the old ones during the war in heaven to ummm...I honestly have no idea what they hoped to accomplish against the Necrons and C'Tan with the Jokaero.

The Jokaero are a tech savvy race and though non-sentient/of limited sentience, they are capable of rapidly constructing technological marvels in order to overcome obstacles. The point of the Jokaero was to try to create a race that could match/outperform the Necrons on the technological front while lacking the capability to take the initiative to turn on the Old Ones in the long run. Too little, too late.

 Kojiro wrote:

Psienesis wrote:If you're fighting a Howling Banshee, who's dressed in the Eldar equivalent of carapace armor... your laspistol is useless.

Carapace armour (and granted my memory has it as a 4+) has a decent chance of stopping bolt rounds doesn't it? Even so I'd still rather have a .22 to shoot at a charging gorilla than nothing.

Psienesis wrote:I think, if the Imperium advances the hellgun technology far enough, the stuff the Storm Trooper Regiment carries, and can power it through the PA's reactor, then we'll be on to something. *This* is a las-weapon that is worthy of the Imperium's elite, and offers the stopping power and armor penetration that a Space Marine needs on the battlefield.

Yes, that would be the ideal, but I discounted it after reading up about weapon durability, at least as you say in it's current form. In fact if it can defeat power armour better than a bolter there may well be missions it would be, even at current levels, a superior weapon to bolters. It all comes down to how much power the weapon can draw from the suit before it compromises the suits other functioning. A laspistol I'm sure wouldn't but maybe you could go as high as a hellgun. Certainly we know a hellgun pack can hold a charge of 200 shots and we already know that marines have charge storing backpacks (Devastators with lascannons). I don't know it's been explicitly stated anywhere but if you're going to have a custom backpack for a laser weapon with the fusion plant it would be the height of idiocy to not link them, so that excess power could recharge the lascannon. It would really be an adaptation of that technology, though you could make it far smaller due to a) it doesn't need to store as much energy b) it will recharge faster. And given that you get 200 shots without a recharging fusion plant that seems like plenty for an average strike force marine. They can't seriously be carrying more than that in bolt ammunition anyway, they're ludicrously large. I think this hellgun idea is where it's at, possibly even replacing bolters

Armadeus wrote:They do carry knifes, or bayonets, they just don't have pistols to pair them with.

That's it. Once upon a time marines did carry knives and bolt pistols but some where along the line the knife was stripped. And as people have said, it's not like it's a small weapon. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the reason they removed them is for balance but if I saw a normal man with a sword in one hand and a marine 'knife' in the other as far as I'm concerned he's got two ways to kill me.

"if the Imperium advance hell gun technology enough" "Once upon a time marines did carry knives and bolt pistols but some where along the line the knife was stripped "

These are astounding. All of this is astounding. Hellguns are not all the same. Tactical squads do not need a bonus in their army list entry to carry combat knives.

If I were going to shoot myself I'd use a .22, since it might bounce around inside my skull instead of using energy to mess up the carpet that it could have used to wreck my brains.

Also, since I am very tall, I would get less benefit from a six foot stick than a short person would. A 20 inch combat knife improves a 5'9" soldier's reach by 72% but a 7'2" marines reach by 58%. It is not really the same knife.

Tactical squads would be doing their jobs badly if they got dragged into combat.

Being good in combat because of having two weapons is a weird rule. Guardsmen are not ambidextrous. It is also weird that they can fire storm bolters like shot guns.