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What if instead of shred bolter weapons after rolling to to wound, those that hit and failed to wound my try to wound again at Str 3 AP 6? Not a straight reroll but not pointless. Maybe this is too little.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
HB should have shred at its current point cost. Problem solved. It would become about as good as a scatter laser vs infantry and MC - and still would be weaker vs light armor. Hard to argue this isn't the perfect solution - because it it.

BTW bolters should have shred too but also - razorbacks shouldn't be free.

I would like bolters having shred.
It seems to be the thing atm that everyone should have a special snowflake for a standard small arm.

That's why I think it's the perfect solution. It would be insanely OP with gladius though - gladius is only not OP because bolters are terrible.

Bolters are not terrible.
They are not ridiculous OP nonsense like grav but they are an effective weapon.

No, they are not. Not in the 7th ed meta. Specifically the heavy bolter trying to pretend its a heavy weapon.

As a BA player, I actually have to pay for my units (unlike vanilla marines), and I minimize the presence of bolt anything due to their ineffectiveness.

What about salvo 2/4 with shred?

Jbz` wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
HB should have shred at its current point cost. Problem solved. It would become about as good as a scatter laser vs infantry and MC - and still would be weaker vs light armor. Hard to argue this isn't the perfect solution - because it it.

BTW bolters should have shred too but also - razorbacks shouldn't be free.

I would like bolters having shred.
It seems to be the thing atm that everyone should have a special snowflake for a standard small arm.

That's why I think it's the perfect solution. It would be insanely OP with gladius though - gladius is only not OP because bolters are terrible.

Bolters are not terrible.
They are not ridiculous OP nonsense like grav but they are an effective weapon.

LOL no they're not. You buy Special weapons for a reason. Any infantry problems can be handled by just a few flamers from Assault Squads.

 hippyjr wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
I kind of think a lot of space marine weapons would make sense having slightly different rules and the word "astartes" in front of their names. Some mechanics just match the cinematic feel of a given faction better than others. For instance...

* Astartes Heavy Bolters become salvo 2/4 because it provides an interesting, flexible compliment to regular bolters and because marines walking around with enormous bolters blazing simply looks awesome.
* Astartes plasma weapons do not get hot because spontaneously dying from forgetting to vent your plasma kind of flies in the face of the action movie protagonist aesthetic that marines channel. Maybe even give marines the option to fire more lethal versions of their plasma weapons at the cost of making that gun unusable for the rest of the game. For instance, a plasma gun might become s8 Ap1 once per game, but cannot be fired again afterward as the (centuries old and martially-obsessed) marine allows it to safely cool down.
*Astartes frag grenades and missiles become large blasts. So that you actually have a reason to occassionally throw a frag.
* Astartes krak missiles inflict multiple hull points worth of damage on a penetrating hit to give them an anti-tank role.

That sort of thing. It matches the fluff of the army better (without becoming blatantly overpowered) and sort of makes sense. There's a difference between a teenaged guardsman frantically firing his plasma gun for the first time and a space marine who sleeps with his plasma pistol and ocassionally uses it to clean the bathtub when he isn't incinerating tyranids with it.

Not to poke holes, but I'm not sure I get where you're coming from for the majority of these points:
- I understand marine heavy bolters being salvo because marines are strong enough to lug them around and keep firing on the move, but I would at least give non-SM heavy bolters a point reduction to compensate for marines having better stuff. Balance and all that.
- Why only buff grenades/missiles for marines? Not quite sure why standard issue rockets create bigger explosions when fired by a steroid monster as opposed to a guardsman, the marines superior training is already covered by his BS stat.
- Finally, I was under the impression that gets hot! is used to represent anything from the gun overheating to destabilisation and misfire, not just some trigger happy idiot forgetting to vent his gun. That is to say, the problem is with the weapon and not the gunman. So why are marines getting special plasma that won't scratch their 3+ armour (which already means the marine only has a 1/18 chance of death)? Also, how would you balance the removal of gets hot other than a price hike for marine plasma? The one shot s8 round I wouldn't have a problem with, but apart from the last turn of the game I don't understand why anyone would sacrifice their weapon for it. The difference in skill between a marine or guardsman firing the gun is denoted by the difference is BS. Even a new guardsman will have been trained to shoot, and a d6 system will struggle to show this comparison accurately without giving marines BS5, or nerfing guardsmen into the ground to BS2 - that's ork territory!)

I do like the idea of making HBs salvo weapons though

It's a matter of aesthetic more than anything else. When a guardsman's plasma gun gets hot and fries the wielder's face off, you can go, "Oh man. That's rough. This really illustrates how expendable human lives are in the 41st millenium." When a space marine abruptly loses life or limb because his gun acts up, it's more, "Wow. Probably not a good idea to let our extremely rare and difficult to produce super soldiers carry around time bombs that have a 1 in 18 chance of killing them." My pet preference in general would be to have marines be much less numerous but to do much more damage in a given round of shooting/assault than they tend to right now. Bigger explosions and not accidentally melting your face off ties into that both mechanically and thematically.

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing other imperial factions get a few tweaks for their weaponry either. Guardsmen are welcome to large blast frag missiles, as far as I'm concerned.

The appeal of S8 Ap1 shooting would generally be for alpha striking units. Your drop pod marines probably won't survive long behind enemy lines, but at least you have a shot at bringing down a critical (probably vehicular) target before you do so. Even a rhino rush type army might decide "using up" their plasma is worth it if it let them crack open some transports or take down some heavier vehicles when they did so.




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 Haravikk wrote:
I think 4 shots isn't quite enough.

I'd say make it Heavy 4 but also -1 to cover saves. The idea here is that the heavier shells slam into cover and explode, shredding the target with debris anyway, so there's less benefit to being in cover against it.

This doesn't make the weapon suddenly an ideal anti-marine weapon or anything, but does give it a bit of a niche as a long-range weapon that can put extra hurt on targets in cover, compared against flamers which are better at that but need to get a lot closer first.

Neat idea, but I'm not sure I'd like the result in practice. I see this doing relatively little to improve the heavy bolter against most targets, but making it somewhat better against dark eldar vehicles or 'nids and orks trying to make their way towards you using cover. All of which are armies that don't need another kick in the geneseed right now.


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Martel732 wrote:
There is no justification for making the heavy bolter shoot more than an assault cannon.

Would it be crazy to just switch the rules/names of heavy bolters and assault cannons (while still fixing the mechanics of heavy bolters)? You could make the assault cannon a high rate of fire anti-MC/infantry weapon with shred or what have you representing its high rate of fire, and the heavy bolter could have a lower rate of fire but be able to rending vehicles and have a higher strength (representing its explosive ammunition).

I think HBs should be at least Salvo 3/5 weapons with Rending.

 Galef wrote:
As much as I am against every standard weapon having it's own add-on rule, all Bolters having Shred at least makes sense fluffwise (exploding bullets) and helps immensely against so many things Marines struggle with (i.e. MCs)

But in an ideal world, Eldar Bladestorm would be Shred instead of the pseudo-Rending it is now.

Not to get too off-topic, but I've actually come to kind of like the special snowflake rules on basic guns. Poison shows dark eldar being mean. Gauss fits well with the slow, implaccable nature of 'crons (we'll kill you one hull point at a time), bladestorm represents the air being replaced with sharp death that eventually carves up a weak point in your armor, and pulse weapons have the strength and range to simply out shoot most other basic guns. I kind of like it.

But yes, shred would make sense on bolters and help reinforce the idea that bolters are in fact significantly more lethal than a las gun. I also don't hate the idea of simply making bolters strength 5, thus allowing them to potentially take down light transports with sufficient weight of fire. This would mean bolters aren't totally useless when you're trying to pop an enemy transport with your krak grenade and meltagun.


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 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
I think HBs should be at least Salvo 3/5 weapons with Rending.

Eh. At that point, aren't you just making an off-brand assault cannon though? You'd have an extra shot (sometimes), and you'd have a slightly lower strength, but the two weapons would be remarkably similar. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I feel like your performance against most targets would be remarkably similar to the assault cannon's.

Wyldhunt wrote:Not to get too off-topic, but I've actually come to kind of like the special snowflake rules on basic guns. Poison shows dark eldar being mean. Gauss fits well with the slow, implaccable nature of 'crons (we'll kill you one hull point at a time), bladestorm represents the air being replaced with sharp death that eventually carves up a weak point in your armor, and pulse weapons have the strength and range to simply out shoot most other basic guns. I kind of like it.

But yes, shred would make sense on bolters and help reinforce the idea that bolters are in fact significantly more lethal than a las gun. I also don't hate the idea of simply making bolters strength 5, thus allowing them to potentially take down light transports with sufficient weight of fire. This would mean bolters aren't totally useless when you're trying to pop an enemy transport with your krak grenade and meltagun.

Shred would be nice, yeah. Or at least something to make bolters feel more like there own thing and not just the generic 40k small arm while everyone else gets cooler stuff. As long as it's not rending.

Wyldhunt wrote:Eh. At that point, aren't you just making an off-brand assault cannon though? You'd have an extra shot (sometimes), and you'd have a slightly lower strength, but the two weapons would be remarkably similar. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I feel like your performance against most targets would be remarkably similar to the assault cannon's.

At this point, I really don't care. Given that it's absurdly hard to actually field assault cannons in numbers (please, please, please, no whining about the battle company. The only thing worse than facing one is hearing the incessant complaining about it), and even harder to get them where you want them to be, the fact that they might be slightly confused with another weapon isn't that big a deal.

" Given that it's absurdly hard to actually field assault cannons in numbers "

This is a big reason I don't like the weapon at all.

Martel732 wrote:
" Given that it's absurdly hard to actually field assault cannons in numbers "

This is a big reason I don't like the weapon at all.

I like the concept, but the fact that you can't actually use them is obnoixious. Every single other weapon in the marine codex barring stuff like the demolisher cannon is man portable, why are assault cannons only usable on a couple vehicles and 1 to a squad of terminators?

It's just a slap in the face when the Eldar trot out 40 scatterlasers as well.

Martel732 wrote:It's just a slap in the face when the Eldar trot out 40 scatterlasers as well.

Ugh...dude, we get it. Is it really necessary for every other post to be you complaining about riptides, WKs, scatterlasers, MCs in general, or some combination of the above?

 Battlegrinder wrote:

Martel732 wrote:It's just a slap in the face when the Eldar trot out 40 scatterlasers as well.

Ugh...dude, we get it. Is it really necessary for every other post to be you complaining about riptides, WKs, scatterlasers, MCs in general, or some combination of the above?

Not everyone gets it amazingly enough. It's very hard to have a discussion about assault cannons without mentioning the pink elephant as well.

Martel732 wrote:

 Battlegrinder wrote:

Martel732 wrote:It's just a slap in the face when the Eldar trot out 40 scatterlasers as well.

Ugh...dude, we get it. Is it really necessary for every other post to be you complaining about riptides, WKs, scatterlasers, MCs in general, or some combination of the above?

Not everyone gets it amazingly enough. It's very hard to have a discussion about assault cannons without mentioning the pink elephant as well.

Don't forget we had posters in the past (Bharring being an example) that thought the codex was perfectly balanced externally.

It wouldn't be so bad if the gulf between heavy bolter and multilaser/scatterlaser wasn't so large. AP4 is severely devalued and strength is overvalued because of hull points and cover.

Salvo weapon type would help a lot with it, str 5 AP 3 would be a good place as well since you don't wanna step on assault cannon toes

Auto cannon as well should be str 7 AP 3, until then they are worthless.

Autocannon is fine as is for the most part. Ask the Chaos Marine and Imperial Guard players.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Salvo weapon type would help a lot with it, str 5 AP 3 would be a good place as well since you don't wanna step on assault cannon toes

Auto cannon as well should be str 7 AP 3, until then they are worthless.

You could just say "I want to hard-ban Space Marines/Battle Sisters" straight out instead of handing everything in the game AP3 in an effort to force them off the table.

 Xenomancers wrote:
HB should have shred at its current point cost. Problem solved. It would become about as good as a scatter laser vs infantry and MC - and still would be weaker vs light armor. Hard to argue this isn't the perfect solution - because it it.

BTW bolters should have shred too but also - razorbacks shouldn't be free.

Came to the thread to say exactly this. A heavy bolter with shred Is a cheaper less efficient assault cannon (-1 st, -1 shot, shred instead of rending) and becomes worth it's points. Absolute perfect solution.
Don't agree with normal bolters having shred though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Orrr... give it rending rather than shred.

Either/or. Both would sort it out immediately

Poly Ranger wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Orrr... give it rending rather than shred.

We already have that, mostly. Raptor's chapter tactics. As someone who uses that tactic....it's not that great, IMHO. Rending just isn't reliable enough to kick in when you need it to, and for normal stuff it's overkill ("hey, I got a pair of sixes in that volley....oh, right. I'm shooting at some boyz"). Shred is more useful since while it doesn't let you have a 1/6 chance of doing damage to something you normally can't hurt, it lets you actually score more injuries to the things you can hurt.

Perhaps regular bolters could get a rule like 'tearing - reroll failed to wound rolls of 1'
Or maybe that's just adding to the rules bloat.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Perhaps regular bolters could get a rule like 'tearing - reroll failed to wound rolls of 1'
Or maybe that's just adding to the rules bloat.

Actually, this would not be a bad idea for all Bolters. Re-roll rolls of 1 gives a slight feel like Shred, but is not so OP as an entire army with Shred shooting.
Salvo 2/4 Heavy Bolters with this rule would be pretty good since you would re-roll half your fail wounds against most targets anyway.
It would also leave room for Eldar Shuriken weapons to one day be fixed as Shred instead of Bladstorm.

It would be odd for Bolters and Shurikens, two weapons that are quite fundamentally different, to have the same special rule.

-

If you give the HB 4 shots, it becomes statistically as effective against the bog standard T6 3+ MC as an autocannon. Do you want this?

Alcibiades wrote:
If you give the HB 4 shots, it becomes statistically as effective against the bog standard T6 3+ MC as an autocannon. Do you want this?

Well they cost the same, so, yes.

 Battlegrinder wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Orrr... give it rending rather than shred.

We already have that, mostly. Raptor's chapter tactics. As someone who uses that tactic....it's not that great, IMHO. Rending just isn't reliable enough to kick in when you need it to, and for normal stuff it's overkill ("hey, I got a pair of sixes in that volley....oh, right. I'm shooting at some boyz"). Shred is more useful since while it doesn't let you have a 1/6 chance of doing damage to something you normally can't hurt, it lets you actually score more injuries to the things you can hurt.

I was meaning on heavy bolters not bolters. Rending will enable a heavy bolter to be able to damage vehicles up to AV14. It will also make them more effective against MCs. The reliability increases for heavy bolters due to the HRoF. Looking at Rapiers for instance, they will be getting you just under 3 rends on average a turn from a full unit. That's why rending on assault cannons is so nice - the HRoF. Raptors bolters become heavy 1, so lose any chance of even a mid RoF.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
If you give the HB 4 shots, it becomes statistically as effective against the bog standard T6 3+ MC as an autocannon. Do you want this?

Well they cost the same, so, yes.

They're supposed to have different functions. The HB is supposed to be primarily a light infantry killer which can if pressed do double-duty against MCs and light vehicles; the AC is supposed to be the opposite.

If you give the HB four shots, the AC becomes a superior weapon to other options only against AV12 -- the only category in which it would be superior to both HBs and lascannons.

This is exactly why it's so hard to change the HB. If you increase its ability against its supposed preferred target (light infantry), either by increasing RoF or strength or adding Shred, it starts to take over the roles of other weapons. Because an increase from 3 to 4 is a 33% increase, which is big, as is an increase from 50 to 75% (a 50% increase!) or 17 to 31% or 33 to 61% (almost 100%!) with Shred and so on. (Shred almost doubles its damage output against T6).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
actually what adding Shred would do is create a relatively small increase in lethality against light infantry (83% to 97%, only about 20%), but a very large increase against high-T units.(almost 100% agaiinst T6).

Heavy bolter is a high RoF infantry slayer
Autocannon is the mid ground
Lascannon is an anti-tank weapon.

T6 is the middle ground between weak and strong, I'm fine with autocannons/heavy bolters meeting there. Did you know against T2 an auto cannon equals a boltgun?
Lascannons don't compare nearly so well, they're twice the price for a start.

Currently an autocannon is superior to the heavy bolter against anything T4 and above, and is significantly better against vehicles. Lets even that out
Although I would agree shred is too much, at best it should get my 'tearing'

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
I think HBs should be at least Salvo 3/5 weapons with Rending.

HB can't have rending. It would just become an assault cannon then.

Alcibiades wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
If you give the HB 4 shots, it becomes statistically as effective against the bog standard T6 3+ MC as an autocannon. Do you want this?

Well they cost the same, so, yes.

They're supposed to have different functions. The HB is supposed to be primarily a light infantry killer which can if pressed do double-duty against MCs and light vehicles; the AC is supposed to be the opposite.

If you give the HB four shots, the AC becomes a superior weapon to other options only against AV12 -- the only category in which it would be superior to both HBs and lascannons.

This is exactly why it's so hard to change the HB. If you increase its ability against its supposed preferred target (light infantry), either by increasing RoF or strength or adding Shred, it starts to take over the roles of other weapons. Because an increase from 3 to 4 is a 33% increase, which is big, as is an increase from 50 to 75% (a 50% increase!) or 17 to 31% or 33 to 61% (almost 100%!) with Shred and so on. (Shred almost doubles its damage output against T6).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
actually what adding Shred would do is create a relatively small increase in lethality against light infantry (83% to 97%, only about 20%), but a very large increase against high-T units.(almost 100% agaiinst T6).

However, Lascannons are 20 points, so you'd have to do the math for 1-2 Lascannons vs 2-4 Autocannons.