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a BS skill of 3 is BS. it should be a 4. all of the novels and discriptions of guardsmen say that they train constantly. i remember reading a book called Cadian Blood. (very good book) it was saying how most guardsmen are punished if they miss a shot in battle. if thats the case then why do half the shots the make miss?! and i know space marines have a BS of 4 as well. the should have a 5. they train for years and years. it just seems stupid that the BS skill is so low for them. if you agree or have something to add then please post.

Firstly you have to get away from believing in the notion that a BS of 3 means that half a Guardsman's shots made in battle miss. "Shots" in the game are not congruent to 'shots' made in the background.

Secondly, once you've overcome the urge to apply fundamentalist reading to game mechanics, you have to consider how BS affects the game mechanics. Game mechanics come first.

Veteran Guardsmen do have a BS of 4 (I believe Conscripts have a BS of 2, could be wrong though).

If you want a less literal way of thinking about the Warhammer 40,000 characteristics, consider each +1 increment to be a multiple of 10, so an Assault 1 weapon between one and nine rounds fired, and an Assault 2 has between ten and ninety-nine rounds fire, and an Assault 3 weapon fires hundreds of rounds (Assault 4 is thousands, etc).

This isn't completely linear though, as an Assault 1 weapon may fire one shot while another may fire six shots. A larger weapon would fire fewer shots, and a concentration of shots may trade "shots" for rules like Rending.

Hello and welcome to Dakka!

Welcom to dakka! Guardsmen may train for years in fluff-wise, however in game terms and during the heat of battle, shooting isn't that easy. It would make the game too easy and unbalanced if all units were hyper accurate.

Nurglitch wrote:Firstly you have to get away from believing in the notion that a BS of 3 means that half a Guardsman's shots made in battle miss. "Shots" in the game are not congruent to 'shots' made in the background.

Secondly, once you've overcome the urge to apply fundamentalist reading to game mechanics, you have to consider how BS affects the game mechanics. Game mechanics come first.

Veteran Guardsmen do have a BS of 4 (I believe Conscripts have a BS of 2, could be wrong though).

If you want a less literal way of thinking about the Warhammer 40,000 characteristics, consider each +1 increment to be a multiple of 10, so an Assault 1 weapon between one and nine rounds fired, and an Assault 2 has between ten and ninety-nine rounds fire, and an Assault 3 weapon fires hundreds of rounds (Assault 4 is thousands, etc).

This isn't completely linear though, as an Assault 1 weapon may fire one shot while another may fire six shots. A larger weapon would fire fewer shots, and a concentration of shots may trade "shots" for rules like Rending.

Holy feth, how many rounds would a Punisher gating cannon (heavy 20) weapon fire then?

also welcome to dakka

Welcome to dakka, and remember imperial guard have ranks thats pretty much a wall of lasgun in your face even if half miss the ones that do hit are going to do some damage, high numbers is the imperial way (:

Moving to a more appropriate forum.

Welcome to dakka..


BS 3 is not bad, not at all. If the all powerful space marines are at 4, and a guardsman is a 3, it is not that bad. Two guardsmen have a better chance of hitting than a single sace marine.

If my juves can shoot to kill at BS 2, than you got nothing to worry about.

BS3 is actually a great deal better than most humans can manage. Conscripts more accurately represent the average human firing a gun, whereas full military training gives the Guardsmen their BS. Bear in mind that BS4 is supposed to represent the eagle-eye accuracy of a genetically enhanced killing machine, and then consider that giving platoons of 30+ guardsmen BS4 would make them horrible to fight, and you see why BS3 is an appropriate stat for them.

BS3 represents an average human who has been moderately trained. "3" is meant to be human average.

BS4 is above average. BS5 is immensely above average. And so on. Guardsman, trained in their millions, are simply *average*.

I agree. Every other model should be given +1BS too.

BS3 is fine, the only time it doesn't seem so is when just about every other army out there is BS4 (WH/DH/DE/CSM/SM/DA/BA/SW/BT/Necrons/most Eldar units) because they all have to be so "elite".

Lord Harrab wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Firstly you have to get away from believing in the notion that a BS of 3 means that half a Guardsman's shots made in battle miss. "Shots" in the game are not congruent to 'shots' made in the background.

Secondly, once you've overcome the urge to apply fundamentalist reading to game mechanics, you have to consider how BS affects the game mechanics. Game mechanics come first.

Veteran Guardsmen do have a BS of 4 (I believe Conscripts have a BS of 2, could be wrong though).

If you want a less literal way of thinking about the Warhammer 40,000 characteristics, consider each +1 increment to be a multiple of 10, so an Assault 1 weapon between one and nine rounds fired, and an Assault 2 has between ten and ninety-nine rounds fire, and an Assault 3 weapon fires hundreds of rounds (Assault 4 is thousands, etc).

This isn't completely linear though, as an Assault 1 weapon may fire one shot while another may fire six shots. A larger weapon would fire fewer shots, and a concentration of shots may trade "shots" for rules like Rending.

Holy feth, how many rounds would a Punisher gating cannon (heavy 20) weapon fire then?

also welcome to dakka

I have a theory. It's my theory that the Punisher doesn't fire off a spray of bullets, but instead shoots salvoes of exposive projectiles. Rather than make you roll for 6+ bast templates, the punisher simply treats it as a normal weapon with insane rate of fire. This also explains the complete lack of AP that a Punisher has.

BS 3 is fine ... however I agree it is annoying considering it's what Tau and IG that have bs 3 majority?

If super human, genetically engineered, best thing in the universe saviors of humanity are only BS4 a well trained man should IMO not even be 3. But I don't make the rules.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

Lord Harrab wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Firstly you have to get away from believing in the notion that a BS of 3 means that half a Guardsman's shots made in battle miss. "Shots" in the game are not congruent to 'shots' made in the background.

Secondly, once you've overcome the urge to apply fundamentalist reading to game mechanics, you have to consider how BS affects the game mechanics. Game mechanics come first.

Veteran Guardsmen do have a BS of 4 (I believe Conscripts have a BS of 2, could be wrong though).

If you want a less literal way of thinking about the Warhammer 40,000 characteristics, consider each +1 increment to be a multiple of 10, so an Assault 1 weapon between one and nine rounds fired, and an Assault 2 has between ten and ninety-nine rounds fire, and an Assault 3 weapon fires hundreds of rounds (Assault 4 is thousands, etc).

This isn't completely linear though, as an Assault 1 weapon may fire one shot while another may fire six shots. A larger weapon would fire fewer shots, and a concentration of shots may trade "shots" for rules like Rending.

Holy feth, how many rounds would a Punisher gating cannon (heavy 20) weapon fire then?

also welcome to dakka

I have a theory. It's my theory that the Punisher doesn't fire off a spray of bullets, but instead shoots salvoes of exposive projectiles. Rather than make you roll for 6+ bast templates, the punisher simply treats it as a normal weapon with insane rate of fire. This also explains the complete lack of AP that a Punisher has.

That makes sense, i never understood how a gating of that size lacked any armor piercing ability. ( Aside from game balance balance.)

whoops, need to be on topic: Guardsmen are definitely trained marksmen, comparable to any armed forces solider of today, their low BS is simply to make the "Elite" forces of 40k look deserving of that title.

Lord Harrab:

I'd say it's like a shotgun using scatter shot with low armour penetration; although technically short-burst direct-fire machine guns behave like shotguns. So if firing buckshot kicks a shotgun up to Assault 2, call a Punisher Cannon as firing ~10 rounds of submunitions per game turn, which can be glossed as a minute for lack of evidence or representative scale stated.

By comparison, a GAU-8 Avenger cannon, the one mounted on the A-10 Warthog, can do 4,200 rounds per minute. According to the Wikipedia page it's typically restricted to 1-2 second bursts to avoid over-heating and preserve ammunition. In that case the high rate of fire is useful for minimizing the spread of shots from a moving shooter. That means it would be Heavy 4 following the above assumption of "turn-time" if we're going to be stupid and take the game rules as having anything to do with what they are purported to represent...

Of course, you could think of the Punisher's Heavy 20 as simply filling a non-Blast Marker shaped hole in the Leman Russ turret weapon options that couldn't be armour piercing (like an Assault Cannon because that's the Vanquisher), or anti-light vehicle (because that's the Exterminator) without becoming a no-brainer.

Its a GAU-8 firing airbursting frag or buckshot rounds. OF COURSE!

Also, while guardsmen are about the top 5% of today's military, that is still BS3, when compared to veterans who have been through hell and back thrice, and all that is left of half a regement (per squad) or, Yah know, demigods.

Why sisters are BS4 straight out of training kinda baffles me, but so does their low LD.

No. The average Guardsman needs to be just that - average. BS3 represents a trained shooter, but not an expert. Save that for veterans and Space Marines.

Or, you know, it's not representational at all and the fluff is cut to fit the game mechanics rather than the other way around...

Right, guardsmen are all the way up to BS3 BECAUSE they spend so much time training. If they didn't spend all that time training, they'd just be BS2 (cf. conscripts, which haven't had a lot of training).

As has been said, a single 'shot' in game, is not necessarily a single 'shot' in real life...

But more importantly, have you seen real life accuracy records? In real life militaries, thousands of bullets are fired for every confirmed dead baddie. Yes, most of that is just supressing fire, but it's only in video games where every soldier can fire a snap shot and expect to hit right away.

And if 40k gaming fit the fluff, 99.9999% of games would be IG on IG to represent the various rebellions, cultists and other crap the IG fight on a regular basis. The reason we see so many 'elite' armies is simply because elite warriors tend to be a bit more interesting than grunts. Not to everyone, but still...to lots of people, Elites are more glamorous.

Take it as a massive generalization. If they were to make it realistic for every single Imp Guard Army, BS would be measured in 3-4 digit numbers, and that would really make ass of the amount of calculations that would go into how they would perform on the tabletop. Acceptable break from Reality really, as you want easy numbers to calculate for game usage.

i have read and thought about all of the posts. (thanks for the welcomes!) but anyway, i now agree that bs 3 is fitting for a guardsmen. it is irratating though that the tanks have the same bs skill.

Why? A tank is only crewed by the same guardsman.

Leman Russes, Chimeras, and other such things being BS3 I don't mind.

Baneblades and Shadowswords? Those I do.

Guardsman have BS3 after training for years.

Space Marines have trained centuries and are BS4.

Dark Eldar have been in the webway for centuries and millenia and are BS4. The same with Eldar with rare occassion. Even Chaos Marines, ancient and evil that they are only have BS4. If anything, Guardsmen should have -1 BS, and get twice as many shots.

I think its a testament to the skill of some normal humans that they can ever reach BS4. BS3 is the shooting skill of your average trained infantryman.

Yarrick, Commissar has an inhuman BS 5. Also T4 and is the only human that never wears a gasmask in the poisonous atmosphere of Armaggedon. Anyone who ISNT that hardcore (that is, actually human) simply has to deal with BS4.

BS is based on point cost not fluff.