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Hi Guys,

Just a minor observation, but I think GW is missing an option in its toolbox for weapon design: The un-typed ranged weapon.

My Reasoning:

1. Every single weapon type GW currently has, contains some form of special rule, with some form of positive or negative correlation.
2. To my limited knowledge, there are plenty of rifles out there that dont fit, a heavy, assault, or rapid fire profile.
3. Every weapon type is a little difficult to balance due to its qualitative special nature.
4. As an extension of 3, there is no baseline to compare when assessing the value of a weapon.
5. A lack of a type-less weapon seems particularly evident on many very heavy vehicles, which often require special rules to ignore the limits of their weapons, which often are only available to these vehicles. (its having to write two rules, to return to a neutral state).

My solution. Introduce some weapons without type. That have no special rules. they have x number of shots, no consequences for moving, no ability to fire into assault, no ability to fire while advancing etc, they are just guns that do exactly what they say on the tin.

Such weapons tend to get relegated to 'assault', which gives some awkward situations where something can run & gun which shouldn't.

I agree. Something like "Ranged". Then each of the current types are subtypes of "Ranged".

If it's a light weapon it becomes Assault, if it's a bulky weapon it becomes Heavy.

What you're describing is rapid fire without the double tap component a la 3rd ed. Why do you feel rapid fire needs to be altered way you're describing?

 skchsan wrote:
What you're describing is rapid fire without the double tap component a la 3rd ed. Why do you feel rapid fire needs to be altered way you're describing?

Why do you think this is a proposal to change rapid fire? That's not what's being proposed here at all.
This is simply a more efficient way of presenting the rules for certain units. There are many units throughout the game that would be saved a special rule by introducing a basic weapon type.


Saying it's describing Rapid Fire without the double tap component is like saying it's describing Heavy without the -1 penalty for moving. Or that it's describing Assault without the ability to shoot at -1 after advancing.

Untyped ranged weapons.... Do we need types at all, or would special rules as needed be a more effective and cleaner approach? This is what MEDGe does, and I think it allows for more design space.

Blastaar wrote:
Untyped ranged weapons.... Do we need types at all, or would special rules as needed be a more effective and cleaner approach? This is what MEDGe does, and I think it allows for more design space.

Because if 8th edition needed anything, it's more bespoke rules.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
Untyped ranged weapons.... Do we need types at all, or would special rules as needed be a more effective and cleaner approach? This is what MEDGe does, and I think it allows for more design space.

Because if 8th edition needed anything, it's more bespoke rules.

I can kind of see the argument for and against - as the majority of rules would be the same. But, it would make finding those rules which are different a little challenging.

If only we had a set of universal special rules in the main rulebook, we could keep rules consistent!

As for the proposal of having an untyped weapon, IE a weapon without any special rules, I don't see any problem with it, but I'm not sure what weapons would really fall into this category? or is this proposal to make room for additional weapons?

It might be a good option to separate autoguns from lasguns - give autoguns a shorter range (18") and 2 shots, no special rules, and have them as an alternative to lasguns for guard. the wording of the orders means they don't affect autoguns at all.

What I want is for weapons to have the same keyword system as Units, that way we can easily anchor rules.