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Sternguard throw these things around like confetti at a wedding. As do scout Heavy bolters and Captains on Bikes.

Is this some silly "the Imperium has one forge world that can produce these rounds" type affairs?

Perhaps they can't make them as mass production?

Probably more like "Experimental Technology! SHUN!" then anything else, knowing the Imperium.

Aren't they fairly delicate?
Might be difficult to mass produce...

Because they are bloody hard and expensive to make.

Kind of like how we don't equip all our soldiers with rocket launchers.

You mean we don't equip are soldiers with Armour piercing rounds or Hollowpoints? I'm not saying replace Bolters with ML's, I see your point on expense. But the Imperium has indentured servitude (servitors) so mass production is no problem.

Just seems another on of those things to add on the pile of "Makes no sense, but hey it's 40k".

Because Hellfire Rounds aren't something which can be reliably mass-produced. They're a cocktail of various poisons and mutagenic acids coating splinters of metal inside of the bolt shell.

mwnciboo wrote:Sternguard throw these things around like confetti at a wedding. As do scout Heavy bolters and Captains on Bikes.

Is this some silly "the Imperium has one forge world that can produce these rounds" type affairs?

They were only rediscovered about 9,000 years ago, so the imperium is still doing trial runs. After all, if the Adeptus Mechanicus let any old crank "invent" things or come up with new "theories" there would be chaos. Best not to tempt the wrath of the omnissiah.

If I remember right, they were developed in response to the Tyranid fleets, so they really ARE a pretty recent invention. That all Chapters have access to them now does say something about how widely they are produced. But I guess they must be difficult to manufacture, or else aren't trusted, or simply don't cover a wide enough range of threats as well as regular bolter rounds. Rules and fluff aside, it really would be tough to fill a bullet with a cocktail of fast-acting poisons for every kind of alien you might run across, and since the round is designed to shatter, its armor penetration is crap.

Its like asking why don't we replace all of the m4s and m16s with hk416's?

How is this for a theory. They can't be massed produced because their effect is not universal and they have to be type set to the genus of the enemy.

nomotog wrote:How is this for a theory. They can't be massed produced because their effect is not universal and they have to be type set to the genus of the enemy.

Well, it could also be for the same reason that biological weapons aren't commonly used by the Imperium against the Tyranids:

The worry that Tyranids might "adapt" and use your weapons against you.

Actually they are being produced in larger numbers, seeing that they used to be single-shot ammo variants for Space Marine scouts' Heavy Bolters. Shuriken Catapults used to have a very similar option that got dropped.

In true fashion, GW almost seems to be taking rare specialist kit and turning it vanilla and giving it out to every new squad type to make them "elite guard/commandos".

Rules-wise, Sternguard are quite similar to what the Deathwatch squads used to be, just "vanilla-ized".

Like everything else they make, they're already making them as fast as they possibly can.

AegisGrimm wrote:Actually they are being produced in larger numbers, seeing that they used to be single-shot ammo variants for Space Marine scouts' Heavy Bolters. Shuriken Catapults used to have a very similar option that got dropped.

In true fashion, GW almost seems to be taking rare specialist kit and turning it vanilla and giving it out to every new squad type to make them "elite guard/commandos".

Rules-wise, Sternguard are quite similar to what the Deathwatch squads used to be, just "vanilla-ized".

Things becoming more common in-game does not necessarily mean they are in the fluff.

Power weapons are rare, prized relics for officers of the Imperial Guard as an example.

Kanluwen wrote:Because Hellfire Rounds aren't something which can be reliably mass-produced. They're a cocktail of various poisons and mutagenic acids coating splinters of metal inside of the bolt shell.

There is nothing about what you just described that suggests a difficulty of being mass produced.

ph34r wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Because Hellfire Rounds aren't something which can be reliably mass-produced. They're a cocktail of various poisons and mutagenic acids coating splinters of metal inside of the bolt shell.

There is nothing about what you just described that suggests a difficulty of being mass produced.

They can take longer to produce per round. The Imperium has far from unlimited resources. Would you rather have 50 Helfire Rounds or 2 million bolter rounds. It's pretty much the same reason they don't put Imperial guard in power armor. They just don't have the ability to mass produce power armor on that scale.

The imperium has enough trouble mass producing ordinary bolters. Why would they have less trouble making a more advanced version?

The problem with Hellfire rounds is probably they aren't something that stays static. They have to be modified and re-changed to keep up with the Tyranids ability to adapt to weaponry. The Tyranids don't stay static in this sort of thing either, after all. And they may not adapt in the same way (a good countermeasure is to have different parts of the Tyranid force across the galaxy adapt in different ways, meaning that the Hellfire ammo adapting for one countermeasure wouldn't be able to handle the other.)

What this boils down to is even if you can mass produce applications of Hellfire (screw bolter rounds. They could be using this in heavy weapons, tank and artillery shells, bombs, and the like. Make it a chem weapon.) that won't solve the adaptation problem and thus it won't be a 'silver bullet' solution no matter how many you make.

Same thing with using virus bombs against the 'Nids really. The 'Nids can adapt to that so they probably have to change that around to use it against them.

Game terms, The bolter would become broken. Every bolter wounding on a 2+, Can you say gun line from hell? Fluff wise, The space marines are a military. They issue standard things for every one. A standard bolter shell will kill anything, Hell fire rounds can kill bigger things than a bolter round can faster. So why gear every one with something that can work, When you know what you have does work. Also fluff wise, The hell fire round may have a shorter leather range. Or the round its self can't be fired as fast. Or the travel time from point a to b might be slower. U.S. snipers use a certain round because we know what it does and how it will work. It could be the same thing in this case. So really, If its not broke, don't fix it. Thats why the U.S has been using the same rounds for more than 50 years now. And its very unlikely that a military will have different ammo On the same solider. Before we go into a conflict we do research on what the enemy has and gear for that. And as far as i know we don't ever take hollow points into battle. Its a normal full metal jacket .223, Or 5.56 Which ever you wanna call it.

They have probably tried, but explosion after explosion at the factory has probably required them to slow down and issue them to special units only...

Randomonioum wrote:The imperium has enough trouble mass producing ordinary bolters.

This is an incorrect assumption. They do not have enough trouble mass producing bolters.

They have trouble producing the amount of bolters they actually need. There's a subtle, but substantial difference.

Hellfire rounds need to be tailored to specific opponents.

They are only issued when needed and if the expense in their deploymentis worth the gain.


We might as well ask why every guy in the army isn't issued with an M60, M82A1, and Javelin as standard equipment. Too expensive and overkill in 90% of situations.

Your bog standard Bolt round is sufficient against most opponents. It does have the versitility of getting upgraded for a specific task but only in specilized situations.