Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
What you could do is have the pinning "Stack" a la Bolt Action. Each time a unit gets hit by a unit with a Heavy Bolter than they receive a "Suppression" token. One unit may only deal one suppression token unless you buy a special upgrade. At the end of the shoot phase you count up all of the suppression tokens and then take a pinning minus leader equal to the amount of suppression tokens the unit has to a minimum of 5.

I really like this as a way of making Pinning both more useful and more likely to go off. Every Pinning weapon adds a Supression Token and you only take a Pinning test at the end of the Shooting Phase, with the modifiers. I wouldn't even cap the modifiers.

Yup, I'd love that.

Course, I think the best thing to make Heavy Bolters more appealing would be +1 shot, so Heavy 4. They're not amazing, but they don't need to be.

The big issue with Heavy Bolters is that 3+sv and 2+sv infantry largely ignore them, while cheap horde units are too numerous to care usually, but the expensive 4+sv units get absolutely massacred by them (stuff like Dire Avengers, IG Stormtroopers, etc). What *might* kill 2 Space Marines in a 10man squad will leave only 2-3 Dire Avengers alive in a 10man squad.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
What you could do is have the pinning "Stack" a la Bolt Action. Each time a unit gets hit by a unit with a Heavy Bolter than they receive a "Suppression" token. One unit may only deal one suppression token unless you buy a special upgrade. At the end of the shoot phase you count up all of the suppression tokens and then take a pinning minus leader equal to the amount of suppression tokens the unit has to a minimum of 5.

The only makes pinning worse.

Most people don't realize it as they think "pinning sucks" and never bother learning how it works, but pinning is not at the end of the phase like normal leadership for losing units, its instant.
Meaning, you force a roll, and if it fails the next time a pinning weapon deals an unsaved wounds you take ANOTHER pinning test, over and over until one sticks, the unit dies, or there are no more pinning weapons shooting.

THATS why pinning heavy bolters would be good at the hands of tacticals, because it give you multiple chances to ping down the enemy, and once you did-you can try for another squad, and another. (especially if you are playing imperial fists, who's bolter drill makes it a more reliable strategy to mass HBs)


Some people just do not understand how powerful pinning is in an army that boasts alot of it, it can potentially reduce the biggest threats out there into ineffective for a turn, giving you time to entire remove, or re-pin them. (pinning is the REAL value of snipers people, not its damage output!)

 BoomWolf wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
What you could do is have the pinning "Stack" a la Bolt Action. Each time a unit gets hit by a unit with a Heavy Bolter than they receive a "Suppression" token. One unit may only deal one suppression token unless you buy a special upgrade. At the end of the shoot phase you count up all of the suppression tokens and then take a pinning minus leader equal to the amount of suppression tokens the unit has to a minimum of 5.

The only makes pinning worse.

Most people don't realize it as they think "pinning sucks" and never bother learning how it works, but pinning is not at the end of the phase like normal leadership for losing units, its instant.
Meaning, you force a roll, and if it fails the next time a pinning weapon deals an unsaved wounds you take ANOTHER pinning test, over and over until one sticks, the unit dies, or there are no more pinning weapons shooting.

THATS why pinning heavy bolters would be good at the hands of tacticals, because it give you multiple chances to ping down the enemy, and once you did-you can try for another squad, and another. (especially if you are playing imperial fists, who's bolter drill makes it a more reliable strategy to mass HBs)


Some people just do not understand how powerful pinning is in an army that boasts alot of it, it can potentially reduce the biggest threats out there into ineffective for a turn, giving you time to entire remove, or re-pin them. (pinning is the REAL value of snipers people, not its damage output!)

Or people would give a damn if half the armies weren't fearless and thus completely ignored it anyway.

Yeah. I wish psychological effects were stronger in 40k. There's much less panic, fear and lunacy on the field these days...

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
if you expect heavy bolters to do something amazing then you're forgetting they're just a slightly improved version of an average infantry gun. I've found that taking a devastator squad with 4 heavy bolters is actually quite effective. the heavy bolter is downplayed so much that people will often ignore them entirely, then I'll crack open a waveserpent, out plops a scoring unit and dakka dakka, the scoring unit's gone.

They're also quite effective on attack bikes, I find. you can get rear armour on AV10 and that works, you can worm around cover and root out the weak links in his army, and all the while he's preoccupied with the guns that can kill his tanks. suddenly he's left with all tanks and no troops, and I win the game on objectives.

What you mean is, my opponent was stupid enough to present his rear armour to me.

Sure, 4 heavy bolters will do 3 hull points to a serpent's rear armour, but that doesn't make your 180 point take worthwhile.

I didn't say crack open the waveserpent with the devastators, I said kill the guys inside with them.

and yes, 3 attack bikes with heavy bolters are good at hunting rear armour. it's not about if the opponent presents it to them, it's about going and geting behind him. hence the fast weapon platform. if you roll 3 bikes with multimeltas, first turn they'll have been wiped out, because they have multimeltas.

similar system with my orks - people get caught up killing the lootas, because the lootas will wreck the waveserpents. next thing, i'm charging out of trukks and wrecking the waveserpents with mass S4 attacks.

the thing is that people tend to get caught up on "what can kill my transports" and forget that it's infantry that win the games. so anti-infantry is left to get into a position and then kill off scoring units. attack bikers with heavy bolters are great at routing units off of objectives. that unit of 4 heavy bolters that they ignored because it couldn't do anything suddenly becomes powerful when the infantry spill out, and by then it's too late.

so often I've won games because people have brought everything to kill my transports & forgotten about the guys inside. that's why battlewagon bashes are pretty good.