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.

Hi all,

I've been reading through the forgeworld Horus heresy supplements lately and looking at the campaign legions and primarchs. I noticed that a few of them have cc weapons that are unwieldy. Now I know the novel series aren't really associated any way with the rules, but the primarchs (as I would expect) wield these weapons with ease and at a lightning fast pace.i understand that the unwieldy rules is a rule of the weapon and not the primarch,but I cant find anything that would override this as a primarch rule (e.g. The equivalent of monstrous creature). Is it really the case that a few of these primarchs would actually be initiative 1 on instances of close combat e.g Rogal Dorn's chainblade, Perturabo when he has Manus' hammer(maybe could forgive this one as it wasn't his weapon) and Mortarion with 'silence' his battle scythe that would probably feel like an extension to his arm and finally Horus with worldbreaker. I know the guys have great stats and could weather a huge amount from normal troops in CC but elites etc with the right equipment could do some significant damage with the right equipment before they've even got to struck a blow.

Have a missed something somewhere? Or is this to make primarchs more balanced?

There's nothing preventing the Primarches from being affected by Unwieldy. I'd imagine it's just to balance them out, but it also makes sense from a fluff viewpoint: even though they're demi-gods, they're not going to be able to swing an immense hammer at blinding speed.

It's not much of an issue as unless they're going up against a Super-Heavy Walker or anything which can Stomp, they'll almost certainly survive to strike back.

I agree it must be about balance but what strikes me as oddnis that Vulkan (who is said to be one of the strongest to be fair) could use his 2 handed warhammer without out any initiative penalty and his entire bodyguard of firedrakes could also strike, before mortarion and his entire bodyguard would land a blow. Its not like mortarion isn't used to using his scythe and the novels even describe him as moving supremely fast when assaulting with it in the fluff (again I know the novels aren't the rules). Either way I would still expect mortarion to strike before vulkan's bodyguard and that perhaps his weapon should just have a negative initiative modifier to take into account rather than being totally unwieldy.

There's nothing to get around Unwieldy sadly. But most of the primarchs who have Unwieldy weapons have other bonuses to make up for it. For example, Dorn can go "Best mode" and turn his attacks into S8, AP2 instant-death, etc...

Think of it this way:
They are just giving the Enemy a fighting chance, showing off how they can shrug off lethal blows and making their own attacks seem all that more devastating by comparison.

JinxDragon wrote:
Think of it this way:
They are just giving the Enemy a fighting chance, showing off how they can shrug off lethal blows and making their own attacks seem all that more devastating by comparison.

You mean this?