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More and more I'm thinking it's kind of silly that pistols don't use their profile in close combat. I always picture the fight where my sergeant parries an attack with his sword, the opponent takes two or three steps back for a second, you shoot him in the guts with your plasma pistol. Instead, the game portrays it as you trying to violently club him to death with your pistol, and smacking him with your pistol, while you're holding a sword in your other hand, makes that pistol suddenly able to pierce armor.

Now I'm not saying that we need to completely remove the ability to add an extra attack by carrying a pistol. I think it'd be fine if we said you can still club them with your pistol. However, I was thinking something along the lines of having the option to shoot your pistol instead of doing a melee attack.... a case where the sergeant focuses on blocking with his sword, and waits for the opportunity to get off a pistol shot instead of swinging with his thoroughly inferior sword. In particular I think it's silly that he'd try to cut something with armor two using his sword instead of going for the obviously preferred options of shooting them. Or why try stuffing a krak grenade up a wraithknights behind instead of standing a few feet away and shooting it while your marines distract it?

In it's current state I think the plasma pistol is a bit useless, as you're paying 15 points for what will often only get a single shot in a game. Either you're out of range, or you/opponent charge next turn.

Are you going to raise the cost on plasma pistols then? Power Fists are 25, and have only 1 more Strength, but one fewer attack and unwieldy.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Are you going to raise the cost on plasma pistols then? Power Fists are 25, and have only 1 more Strength, but one fewer attack and unwieldy.

God, I hope not. They're already way too expensive.

The leaked draft 6e rulebook let you replace one of your normal attacks with an attack with your pistol, that seems like an effective balancing tool.

I would of rather seen them go for a single shot in CC (with gunslinger working in tandem) would give you more reasons to take em (since focusing on shooting means you probably wont be flailing your arms around to attack more)

edit: perhaps with WS vs WS instead of BS to represent the parrying and gunkatta effect or whatever

Some pistols are nasty. For example, Eversor's pistol. Or a melta pistol. It works fine in theory when you have pistols from around s3-5 range and probably plazma - as they're currently used so rarely. But there is a number of pistols that'd be completely broken for the current price.

IIRC pistols used to be active in cc some time ago. It all just got down to +1 attack now to make it easier.

I am completely in favor of replacing ONE of the model's CC attacks with it's pistol's profile, if the player chooses to. Gunslinger models would be able to get 2 'shots' but no other attacks. I also think that it would be simplest to use the HTH To Hit chart (Kharn hits on 2's!). These attacks should be at initiative (modified due to charging into terrain sans grenades, etc.).

3 attacks base, +1 for 2 CC weapons, +1 for the charge = 4 attacks with the 'melee' weapon and 1 shot with the pistol.

Pure hilarity ensues when the Space Marine Captain's Plasma Pistol rolls a '1' and he takes a wound....



Some pistols have exotic profiles (template) or have effects upon wounding (Dark Eldar pistol that restores a wound, for example). How would you propose to handle those?

DCannon4Life wrote:
I am completely in favor of replacing ONE of the model's CC attacks with it's pistol's profile, if the player chooses to. Gunslinger models would be able to get 2 'shots' but no other attacks. I also think that it would be simplest to use the HTH To Hit chart (Kharn hits on 2's!). These attacks should be at initiative (modified due to charging into terrain sans grenades, etc.).

3 attacks base, +1 for 2 CC weapons, +1 for the charge = 4 attacks with the 'melee' weapon and 1 shot with the pistol.

Pure hilarity ensues when the Space Marine Captain's Plasma Pistol rolls a '1' and he takes a wound....



Some pistols have exotic profiles (template) or have effects upon wounding (Dark Eldar pistol that restores a wound, for example). How would you propose to handle those?

Just like Snap fire. (aka no go)

Im still for the 1 shot per pistol only in CC just to keep them from going up in price.

Or just let pistols overwatch at full ballistic skill instead...

Could it be made that pistols fire their shot when the model charges, to show that they're taking some last shots before they get fully into combat? This would mean that a plasma pistol shot would hit the closest model, not a model that the opponent challenged? That way you'd still want a powerful melee weapon on a model that might be getting into challenges.

I'd definitely stick though that you can't take a shot in CC as well as get all your standard attacks.... it's not meant to be a huge buff to melee focused models, just something that would encourage you to buy the currently undesired plasma pistol.

As for template pistols, as pointed out above, make them unable to fire or only let them shoot a single target. If you go all out with your flamethrower in CC you're very likely to hurt yourself or your own men, so you only do a short blast at a single foe. For ones that restore wounds, I don't see a problem.

 koooaei wrote:
Some pistols are nasty. For example, Eversor's pistol. Or a melta pistol. It works fine in theory when you have pistols from around s3-5 range and probably plazma - as they're currently used so rarely. But there is a number of pistols that'd be completely broken for the current price.

IIRC pistols used to be active in cc some time ago. It all just got down to +1 attack now to make it easier.

I'd just like to point out that the Eversor's pistol is only "nasty" because the Eversor has a special rule unique to himself. The pistol itself is nothing special- it's a Bolt Pistol, with an alternate, 4+ Poison/AP- profile. Neither one is especially scary until you realize the Eversor gets to fire it four times thanks to his special rule.

Or we could make CC even more broken.....ohh wait thats what this would do.

The idea being that your to busy trying to save your own life that you don't have time to accurately shoot a weapon. Go read the 2011 Marine of the Year award. A marine in Sangin Province with me, while on patrol was reloading his Machine gun when he heard a sound from behind him, turns grabs the machine gun from the taliban coming around the corner, beats the man to death with it. Yes he could have grabbed his pistol but he was to busy trying to stay alive to grab a gun, cock it, aim and fire a shot.

Leave it the way it is.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Or we could make CC even more broken.....ohh wait thats what this would do.

The idea being that your to busy trying to save your own life that you don't have time to accurately shoot a weapon. Go read the 2011 Marine of the Year award. A marine in Sangin Province with me, while on patrol was reloading his Machine gun when he heard a sound from behind him, turns grabs the machine gun from the taliban coming around the corner, beats the man to death with it. Yes he could have grabbed his pistol but he was to busy trying to stay alive to grab a gun, cock it, aim and fire a shot.

Leave it the way it is.

I just assume that the pistol is already in their hand, hence their ability to club you with said pistol

It's not like you're choosing whether to draw and cock the pistol vs using your knife, the thing's already in your hand. The decision your character would be making is whether to shoot plasma at a terminator, or try to punch it to death with said plasma pistol.

Also, would you actually say that CC units are overpowered in this edition? Most people tend to imply anymore that CC is garbage for 90% of units.

Final note, we could make pistols used in CC unwieldy to balance things out, as the whole idea of the unwieldy rule is that it's hard to use the thing.

Actually i was refering to the fact that firing pistols in CC would make it worse for CC units. My CC units don't have access to plasma pistols and I wouldn't want them to use them anyway since they are BS 2. This would break the game even more in favor of higher BS models.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Actually i was refering to the fact that firing pistols in CC would make it worse for CC units. My CC units don't have access to plasma pistols and I wouldn't want them to use them anyway since they are BS 2. This would break the game even more in favor of higher BS models.

Ah, okay. When I originally thought about the idea I was mainly looking for a way to make plasma pistols not quite so garbage, hadn't considered armies that don't have access to pistols. Do you think allowing marines to use their plasma pistols would really hurt orks? Mainly the fact that a plasma pistol shot against generic orks would be less effective than 3 or 4 regular attacks, and against any of your bigger stuff I'd only be able to knock off one wound, after which you'd probably crush me with a PK, vs if I use a maul or fist (with 3 or 4 attacks).

In general I just don't see it as being much more powerful than getting a ton of standard CC attacks, except for a few scenarios (mainly against monstrous creatures and vehicles). In every other scenario a marine would be better with 3 attacks from a power weapon.

Remember, so far I've just wanted it to be that you get a single shot with your pistol instead of your standard melee attacks. And it could always be unwieldy and/or use your WS. It's mainly to make plasma pistols be more than single use in a game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you have time to try shoving a krak grenade of a wraithknights arse, you have more than enough time to fire your plasma pistol up said arse.

I think the idea behind the grenades against MC is your using the only thing that can physically hurt hte thing killing you and your friends.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I think the idea behind the grenades against MC is your using the only thing that can physically hurt hte thing killing you and your friends.

But krak grenades aren't the only thing that will kill a riptide. In fact, my plasma pistol is what, over 4x more likely to wound it?

right but im talking about the concept behind it and not the specifics. In real life I doubt hitting a riptide with a CC knife would do much more then scratch the paint job. but in this game we have to factor in statlines and things like that so I think the idea behind hte grenades was to help infantry units deal with vehicles and MC.

Because Cypher would pown all the HQs

I think it should work, but only to fire snap shots

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I think the idea behind the grenades against MC is your using the only thing that can physically hurt hte thing killing you and your friends.

Well, since Krak Grenades are like, AP3 that's viable....

Oh, wait, they're not. Krak Grenades are AP4, which means that they're almost useless against pretty much every MC in the game. Let's run some numbers to prove this:

10 Tac Marines (since they're sort of the "best case" option, with WS4 and 'free' Kraks), versus a Carnifex (which is itself fairly laughable). Marines are WS4 vs the 'Fex's WS3, so they have a 66% hitrate. Around 6.7 Kraks land, which wound on 4s (S6 Krak vs T6 Fex), for ~3.23 wounds, which then get saved by the Carnifex's 3+ armor, to the order of only ~1.06 unsaved Wounds.

So, yeah. You put a wound onto something that's got what, 4 or 6 (?) wounds. Meanwhile the Fex hits back with S9, and IIRC AP2 on account of being an MC, and again IIRC it gets something like 3 or 4 attacks. Pretty much gibs 1.5-2 Marines straight up.

Being able to sacrifice attacks to fire a pistol once in close combat would not be broken in the slightest. Especially considering that, off-hand, there's only two units I can think of that can get AP2/AP1 pistols on every single member- SoB Seraphim and various flavors of Marine Vanguard Vets. The former are WS/S/T/I 3, and also come with two pistols (because jump infantry should be using two pistols instead of a proper gun or pistol+ccw, I guess?), and VV are ridiculously expensive when kitted out with dual plasma pistols. Or really with any kind of serious upgrades.

 Filch wrote:
Because Cypher would pown all the HQs

Cypher already uses his pistols in CC, doesn't he? Something like half his attacks are the bolt pistol and half his attacks are plasma?

I agree, as is, I don't see much reason to take pistols at their current price.

How about being able to trade off your CC attacks for a single pistol shot (but at initiative)? - exceptions for gunslinger etc... This wouldn't make a character too powerful (trading lots of attacks for a single nice shot) but has some problems with high strength instant death in challenges though. Reminds me a lot of the "Indiana Jones shoots expert swordsman scene".

I like pistols firing overwatch at full BS but that is not an answer to pistols in CC e.g. when you are doing the charging or ongoing combats.

If pistols ignore having to snap shot or get full bs in snap shot then we will see so many planes get shot of the sky by a 12" pistol...

Again, very few races get high strength pistols and even fewer have Low AP pistols, it would be almost a strictly Imperium buff.

 Filch wrote:
If pistols ignore having to snap shot or get full bs in snap shot then we will see so many planes get shot of the sky by a 12" pistol...

The aforementioned "pistols fire at full BS in overwatch" does not ignore the general penalties of snapfire. It just means that when you are charged, you can use full BS for overwatch fire against the charging unit.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Again, very few races get high strength pistols and even fewer have Low AP pistols, it would be almost a strictly Imperium buff.

Eldar/DE/Harlies all get S7+/AP2- pistols. Not only that, but it's always the case that you have to pay out the nose to get one of these kinds of pistols, and they often come with some other drawback- Plasma Pistols have Gets Hot, Inferno/Fusion/Blast pistols are all 6", Grav Pistols can't kill low-save infantry models.

Be able to exchange some of a model's attacks for ONE pistol shot, which must use the Weapon Skill attribute to hit, is not in the slightest way broken.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Are you going to raise the cost on plasma pistols then? Power Fists are 25, and have only 1 more Strength, but one fewer attack and unwieldy.

God, I hope not. They're already way too expensive.

The leaked draft 6e rulebook let you replace one of your normal attacks with an attack with your pistol, that seems like an effective balancing tool.

If plasma pistols suddenly let you hit at Str 7 AP2 with all your attacks, then they'd suddenly be on every single SM character ever.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Filch wrote:
If pistols ignore having to snap shot or get full bs in snap shot then we will see so many planes get shot of the sky by a 12" pistol...

The aforementioned "pistols fire at full BS in overwatch" does not ignore the general penalties of snapfire. It just means that when you are charged, you can use full BS for overwatch fire against the charging unit.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Again, very few races get high strength pistols and even fewer have Low AP pistols, it would be almost a strictly Imperium buff.

Eldar/DE/Harlies all get S7+/AP2- pistols. Not only that, but it's always the case that you have to pay out the nose to get one of these kinds of pistols, and they often come with some other drawback- Plasma Pistols have Gets Hot, Inferno/Fusion/Blast pistols are all 6", Grav Pistols can't kill low-save infantry models.

Be able to exchange some of a model's attacks for ONE pistol shot, which must use the Weapon Skill attribute to hit, is not in the slightest way broken.

Its actualy very broken which is why they don't allow you to do it. this would favor shooty armies and make it even that much harder for assault armies (AKA Nids and Orks) to win. If you don't like the plasma pistol because you pay so much for it then just take a bolt pistol and call it a day.

It would be nice to allow pistols to shoot 1 shot in cc using their ranged profile (still using the WS rather than BS of course).

It would certainly make plasma pistols more worthwhile.

However, it would difficult to balance due to the number of models with pistols in the game.

Having tactical squads with ap 5 in cc would make them much more effective vs GEQ for example.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Its actualy very broken which is why they don't allow you to do it. this would favor shooty armies and make it even that much harder for assault armies (AKA Nids and Orks) to win. If you don't like the plasma pistol because you pay so much for it then just take a bolt pistol and call it a day.

Saying "it's very broken which is why it's not allowed", is a blatant copout. Either explain why it's broken, or concede that it's not.

Because it doesn't favor shooty armies, since shooty armies don't buy better pistols since they don't want to get close enough to be assaulted. I mean seriously, is it so hard to understand that 15 points for a plasma pistol is ridiculously overpriced when you consider that it has half the range and potential RoF of a plasma gun that costs the exact same 15 points?

Quite frankly, if you have problems winning with an assault-oriented army, then blame the core mechanics of the game, since the effects of said mechanics make spamming S6/7 guns the easiest, most efficient way to win. 7th is a shooting edition, much like 5th was.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
It would be nice to allow pistols to shoot 1 shot in cc using their ranged profile (still using the WS rather than BS of course).

It would certainly make plasma pistols more worthwhile.

However, it would difficult to balance due to the number of models with pistols in the game.

Having tactical squads with ap 5 in cc would make them much more effective vs GEQ for example.

That's a legitimate concern, since there are quite few models that get to carry pistols in addition to their usual weapons. However, I think that a good way to limit it would be to say that you must trade 2 attacks if you want to fire your pistol in combat. Most of the things that you'll want to shoot in the face with a pistol are usually going to be things that simply punching them isn't going to get the job done. It also means that the only for, as you mentioned, a Tactical squad to get AP5 on combat would be for them to charge- and then they have to deal with getting half as many attacks in exchange for AP5.

OTOH, we could instead make it a character-only rule, given that most of the time it's only character models that get access to the fancy pistols.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 Filch wrote:
Because Cypher would pown all the HQs

Cypher already uses his pistols in CC, doesn't he? Something like half his attacks are the bolt pistol and half his attacks are plasma?

Yah read this and I was like...Cypher has been doing this forever? lol