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I know that this is heresy, but in a heat of battle - can SM or IG or SoB take alien weapons and use them to defend themselves?
Like Guardsman using Tau pulse rifle or Marine using Banshee power sword...
And if the answer is "yes", can I put these weapons on miniatures? ( Like Terminators using custom shota ).

Depends on the weapon and the situation.

Taking a gun and shooting it in the heat of self defense is believable. Using it for an extended battle... not sure if thta'd be believable.

A Terminator wouldn't be able to use a big shoota anyway as orks guns don't generally don't work as the Adeptus Mechanicus have opened Ork guns and found no working parts, the orks just think they'll work so they do. That is the nascent psychic power of the Waaagh!

If it was a life or death situation, and a Guardsman used a pulse rifle, or shuriken catapult to save his life, before tossing it aside, for his lasgun: 1) no one would know, and b) no one would care.

If he tossed his lasgun aside, and took up a pulse rifle or shuriken catapult instead, the consequences would be severe. Losing your lasgun is alreayd an executable offense, and taking up a xenos weapon is heresy to boot.

As for the Marines, it's unlikely they'd be able to use the weapons. I believe there's a story where a group of Space Marines are surronded, and are low on bolter ammo, but can't use the lasguns from the dead Guardsmen around them thanks to the size difference, and given that to a Space Marine, his bolter is a holy symbol they'd be even MORE loathe to throw it aside.

Kravox wrote:A Terminator wouldn't be able to use a big shoota anyway as orks guns don't generally don't work

As has already been stated thousands of times already, this is completely and utterly false.

ChrisWWII wrote:If it was a life or death situation, and a Guardsman used a pulse rifle, or shuriken catapult to save his life, before tossing it aside, for his lasgun: 1) no one would know, and b) no one would care.

If he tossed his lasgun aside, and took up a pulse rifle or shuriken catapult instead, the consequences would be severe. Losing your lasgun is alreayd an executable offense, and taking up a xenos weapon is heresy to boot.

As for the Marines, it's unlikely they'd be able to use the weapons. I believe there's a story where a group of Space Marines are surronded, and are low on bolter ammo, but can't use the lasguns from the dead Guardsmen around them thanks to the size difference, and given that to a Space Marine, his bolter is a holy symbol they'd be even MORE loathe to throw it aside.

Why toss your Lasgun? Only fool would toss a rifle that can recharge on sunlight. You have belt, toss it on your back and take PR .
I thought so for the Marines - their arms are not Human anymore. They can only use bigger guns as their fingers cannot use the trigger properly ( too big ).

Can I still use that on miniatures?

I'd still call it unfluffy, if that's your question. To a Space Marine, his bolter is a holy symbol...tossing it aside in favor of some xenos weapon is a grave, grave heresy.

ChrisWWII wrote:I'd still call it unfluffy, if that's your question. To a Space Marine, his bolter is a holy symbol...tossing it aside in favor of some xenos weapon is a grave, grave heresy.

True, ever heard about them: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Relictors
They where committed traitors only because they where using Chaos weapons against them.

Brother Coa wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I'd still call it unfluffy, if that's your question. To a Space Marine, his bolter is a holy symbol...tossing it aside in favor of some xenos weapon is a grave, grave heresy.

True, ever heard about them: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Relictors
They where committed traitors only because they where using Chaos weapons against them.

While I agree that tossing your bolter/chainsword away for some "Made in Bel-Tain" junk is very looked down upon, I gotta disagree that it is the same league as actively searching for daemon weapons to wack daemons with.

Yeah...the Relictors got wiped out because they were actively looking for Chaos artifacts, and killed some Inquisitors who got too nosy. It's not the same league.

If a Marine did this, he'd probably be punished...but not to the extent the Relictors were.

I know in the Fluff [Caiaphas Cain and The Last Chancers] guardsmen believe that there is a spirit inside the lasgun [machine spirit] which is why in the Impeial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer [I own one ] there are prayers to the gun to unjam, to shoot true, and when your reloading. So in Cian, he mentioned collecting chaos weapons and destroying them, due to a corrupted machine spirit. In the last chancers when their trying to assassinate the tau leader, Kage is in a marketplace, looking at alien weaponry, and states that it would be heretical to use them in battle.

So using these two examples, I think an Imperial Guardsmen will not use a Xenos weapon in battle. Or if he does and an officer or commissar finds out, well i assumes hes given the Emperor's benediction.

ChrisWWII wrote:Yeah...the Relictors got wiped out because they were actively looking for Chaos artifacts, and killed some Inquisitors who got too nosy. It's not the same league.

If a Marine did this, he'd probably be punished...but not to the extent the Relictors were.

They weren't just "actively looking for Chaos artifacts".

They were using and hoarding them.

Hoarding chaos artefacts might as well mean actively looking for them.


And the Inquisition doesn't like it when someone hones in on their job

Kanluwen wrote:
They weren't just "actively looking for Chaos artifacts".

They were using and hoarding them.

Once again Kan, I call semantics. It's clear that 'actively looking for' tends to go pretty much hand in hand with 'using and hoarding'. It's all heresy, and all enough for the Relictors to get the punishment they were given.

ChrisWWII wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
They weren't just "actively looking for Chaos artifacts".

They were using and hoarding them.

Once again Kan, I call semantics. It's clear that 'actively looking for' tends to go pretty much hand in hand with 'using and hoarding'. It's all heresy, and all enough for the Relictors to get the punishment they were given.

You can be "actively looking" for Chaos relics and not be "using or hoarding them".

You can be "actively looking" for them to destroy them.

Your call of semantics has been seen, and raised!

Melissia wrote:And the Inquisition doesn't like it when someone hones in on their job

Clearly, that's because they never learned to share in Emperorgarden.

Melissia wrote:

Kravox wrote:A Terminator wouldn't be able to use a big shoota anyway as orks guns don't generally don't work

As has already been stated thousands of times already, this is completely and utterly false.

Not completely and utterly false; Rather not exactly the norm. It HAS in fact happened, but is not necessarily always the case. Most of the time Orky guns work just fine for anyone, but sometimes in rare cases they will only work in the hands of an Ork due to the Waaagh(There is a valid reason for the Ad-mech Biologis magos to have said that their weapons work via psychic powers; the 1 gun he was given happened to have no moving parts and work in exactly that manner: and yes, it was "just a shoota").

If any of you have ever read Dawn of War asention/tempest you will know that the libriran uses an eldar force weapon. yarrick also uses an ork power claw and in one of the guants ghosts novel mckoll uses a chaos las-pistol and tells an inquisitor with no consiquenses

i think if a gaurdsman threw down his gun for an enenmys there would be serious questions asked, but if they were out of ammo but still kept the gun i don't think much would be wrong with that

Kanluwen wrote:
You can be "actively looking" for Chaos relics and not be "using or hoarding them".

You can be "actively looking" for them to destroy them.

Your call of semantics has been seen, and raised!

I'll get you next time, Kan! Next time! You can't deny though, a Chapter actively looking for Chaos artifiacts WILL be considered suspicious at the very least.

JamesMclaren12 wrote:If any of you have ever read Dawn of War asention/tempest you will know that the libriran uses an eldar force weapon. yarrick also uses an ork power claw and in one of the guants ghosts novel mckoll uses a chaos las-pistol and tells an inquisitor with no consiquenses

I'm tempted to say Dawn of War doesn't count for it's complete and utter disregard of actual fluff. (Backfliping Terminators?! Transforming Rhinos?!) But I don't remember a Librarian using an Eldar force weapon at all. If you're referring to the guy who lost his memory and teamed up Ahriman, then that sword wasn't exactly known to be an Eldar artifact.

Yarrick's power claw is different in a few ways, mainnly because he took it as a symbol of victory, he didn't discard his own weapon in favor of it. The las pistol is what we've been saying that if a Guardsmen does it in a life or death situation, then takes up his lasgun again it'd be fine. If he decides he wants a pulse rifle more than a lasgun, that's not so fine. Besides, INquisitor Lillith was shown to be a rather understanding person for an Inquisitor, definitely not a 'kill them all!' type.

Good point.

something i dont understand is that the imperium is soo agaist mutants yet use ogrims and ratlings

Ogryns and ratlings are: a) not mutated too much, b) have a useful mutation, kinda like Navigators.

It's the Imperium, hypocrisy is necessary for surivial, and questioning just gets you a bolt round in the forehead.

more to the point, Ogryns and Ratlings are not mutants, they are abhumans.

Basically thiers is a shared adaptive mutation across the whole of the settled planet, and is more similar to guided evolution(like we do/did with dogs); where specific traits that were better suited to the environment were the "norm" for youths that grew to reproductive age and as such were able to reproduce.

Navigators however are mutants(as are technically psykers in general); but the navigators are fully hereditary, vs the basic psyker genome which is recessive and does not always present even when you have 2 psykers marry to produce offspring. Back to the navigators; their gene is also recessive, but they specifically only intermarry with other Navigators; causing a lack of the gene to be a recessive trait that rarely presents(similar to sickle cell anemia in Caucasians).

Well in Hinzerhaus the Ghosts saved themselves by using Eldar (The descriptions of the original inhabitants points to them) weapons left lying around when they got the hoauses powersources running, nut Rawne at the end did admit that the Ordos Xenos would be taking them. But in this case their las weapons had no ammo left so no surprise there.

Nothing about the description of the inhabitants of Hinzerhaus points to the Eldar.

Brother Coa wrote:Marine using Banshee power sword...

There are examples of some Eldar weapons only being able to be used by a specific Eldar let alone a non-Eldar due to soulstones. I would say alot of it would be in the heat of the moment, so any conversions would have to be of a pinned/injured guardsman/marine.

In the HH novels Lucius uses xeno weapons a few times in battle,he just gets yelled at if he is still holding it.

But I think in the 41st M,they are stricker.
If it all goes down and dirty and you are really in a pinch then sure,just get yourself back in shape when it's over.

The imperium has always used alien tech, but they will generally not issue it to line soldiers:

Joekero digital weapons have been around since the RT days, Shuriken catapults and jetbikes were around as human copies of eldar tech, The AD Mech have been hinted as having retroengineered or used alien tech.

from ork codex pg 10:

'many captured ork weapons and items of equipment do not work unless wielded by an ork. I theorise that many ork inventions work because the orks themselves think they should work- the strong telekenetic abilities of the ork subconcious somehow ensure that they function as desired.'

That said, not all ork weapons are ork built. They loot other races, and enslave planets to build weapons or demand them as tribute also. These guns work just fine for anyone.

Melkhiordarkblade wrote:In the HH novels Lucius uses xeno weapons a few times in battle,he just gets yelled at if he is still holding it.

The novels also have Space Wolves using Alien weapons any time it kills the enemy better than their own weapons, so I think that's a Legion by Legion thing more than an across the board rule.

SW are fun like that.

Lukas has a dark eldar gunsight on his pistol IIRC.

I can see Space wolves taking battle trophies and using them.

The Space Wolves used them to get a leg up on the adaptive shields of their opponents, like Platuan4th said, so I would think if its trick or a strategy to beat the enemy then they would do it.

Ascalam wrote:I can see Space wolves taking battle trophies and using them.

They weren't battle trophies, though.

They slung their bolters, grabbed up the enemies' weapons, then discarded them when they were done. It was purely a matter of practicality for them.