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Most AP rounds IRL don't explode once they get inside you, though... that significantly increases the lethality of the round.

In a human target, no. But plenty of AP shells are designed to explode inside targets like vehicles, bunkers or ships.

Still, being able to penetrate armour and being able to wound a target are seperate measures of a weapons performance and not necissarily related (though they can be).

Those are kind of a different realm of discussion, though, since those are ordnance and not man-portable "small arms". Standard AP ammo relies on kinetic force and wound-shock to incapacitate, while bolter rounds rely on blowing your chest into chunky salsa.

Jefffar wrote:
Flinty, I was responding to the odds of going through the armour. My assertions make no account of who's wearing it. Not that the ability of the round to go through armour and the ability to wound an in armoured target are related (indeed, armour penetrating ammunition in reality is generally not as good at creating serious wounds as non AP ammo).

You said that one round has a 1/3 chance of getting through power armour, based on the 40k shooting rules. This is unverifiable against the background because one roll of the dice does not equal one bolt round fired.

power armour> steel plate.
terminator armour > bacon.

 Flinty wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Flinty, I was responding to the odds of going through the armour. My assertions make no account of who's wearing it. Not that the ability of the round to go through armour and the ability to wound an in armoured target are related (indeed, armour penetrating ammunition in reality is generally not as good at creating serious wounds as non AP ammo).

You said that one round has a 1/3 chance of getting through power armour, based on the 40k shooting rules. This is unverifiable against the background because one roll of the dice does not equal one bolt round fired.

The actual number of shots fired, no. But I think the number of hits is probably countable.

Eldar Aspect Armour is described as Power Armour in the fluff. For all intents and purposes, they're the same except the Eldar one has more movement controls but less subsystems (like strength enhancement); the durability is about equal.

Dire Avenger armour was meant to be as good as standard Marine power armour originally (being the 'tactical' Aspect Warriors), while specialists like Fire Dragons had better and Swooping Hawks had worse.


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 Wyzilla wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Shuriken are about the same strength as bolter rounds. Except the Shuriken has way less effective range(likely due to the ammo losing ballistic stability)

Not even that, they simply lack the explosive punch bolters almost always follow up with. You can shoot up an Astartes, or even a normal human with shuriken rounds. Unless it cuts something important, it's just a nasty flesh wound.PA's so thick that despite Shuriken's being GW's magical idea of monomolecuar, lack enough force to drive them through bulky armor like PA or terminator armor. Some unlucky chaps tend to die, but otherwise they'll just come out looking like pincushions. Hell, even ludicrously thick Flak armor would probably protect you from shurikens.

Shuriken weapon is very deadly, and penetrate armour almost like an Assault Cannon.

The fluff states single shuriken can penetrate several inches of Plasteel armour.

This thread discourages me. How could the fluff be that inconsistent and illogical?

You don't need Power Armor, you need plot armor

 TedNugent wrote:
This thread discourages me. How could the fluff be that inconsistent and illogical?

You don't need Power Armor, you need plot armor

Well, use your imagination, this is the intent and purpose of having loose fluff

The only real answer is what you believe it does.

If you think it takes one bolt, then it does.

If you think it takes fifty, then it does.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
The only real answer is what you believe it does.

If you think it takes one bolt, then it does.

If you think it takes fifty, then it does.

The first rule of 40K cannon is:

there is no 40K cannon.

If we consider fluff: against bolt rounds, PA is fairly weak, TDA is indomitable and impervious to all but the luckiest of shots. PA is strong against most other small arms fire: flamers (for the most part), lasguns, stubbers etc. This is reinforced by the fact very few SM can take cities and the like - the armour is crazy good, shots just bounce off.

In the game the dice rolling in my opinion represents the capability of a volley if you like to cause damage/wounds. Realistically there would be several shots going off at once, however, to make the game balanced, bolters are played down in comparison to fluff bolters. Otherwise PA would be 2+ 5++ 5+ FNP and TDA would likely be 2+ 2++ 2+ FNP etc. But these stats would be according to probably the most badass version of SM that the author could imagine. so dont bite my head off

From what i read in my novels using a bolt round on Tau/Eldar armor is a complete waste of a bolt as it goes straight through the armor like it was paper. But as for SpaceMarine armor it all depends where it hits and the range the bolt was fired from because bolts need time to properly arm themselves. An example in the WordBearers novels, A word bearers dark apostle pins a WhiteConsuls SpaceMarine to the ground and presses his bolter against the side of the WhiteConsuls helmet and needs to fire 3 bolts to penetrate it. But a bolt round fired from a distance where the bolt is properly armed would probably go straight through the helmet unless the marine was lucky.

because bolts need time to properly arm themselves

No, they don't. They're lethal right out of the muzzle. It's a two-stage gyrojet. Conventional powder sends it down the barrel at supersonic speeds, like any bullet, and then some distance later (possibly even immediately) the gyrojet kicks in. It's lethal at any point in its range.

Once it hits something, the mass-reactive fuse is triggered, and the round explodes a micro-second later, making sure that its good and in you before your torso becomes chunky salsa.

a WhiteConsuls SpaceMarine to the ground and presses his bolter against the side of the WhiteConsuls helmet and needs to fire 3 bolts to penetrate it

And in Blood of Asaheim, a Space Wolf has a boltgun put to his helmet and a single round explodes his skull. Fluff is inconsistent.

How many bolt rounds does it take to go through Space Marine, Eldar, and Tau armor?

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie center of the Tootsie Pop?

"The world may never know."

How many rounds does it take?

Well...how many rounds do you have?

Then again, depends on the bolter. Avenger Bolt Cannon bolts are so big they just completely ignore power armour and equivalents.

In which case, it's "just one". ^^

... unless you are using it like a club to conserve ammo.

For accurate-ish portrayals of weapon damage, I tend to look at the various 40k rpg's from FFG. In Black Crusade (game I'm currently in) A space marine has on average 20 wounds, his armour soaks 8 points of damage, and his natural space marine toughness soaks about another 8,

So thats 20 wounds, soaking the first 16 points of damage on average. An astartes bolter does a d10+9, witha penetration of 4. Also, due to the horrendous nature of bolter ammuntion, they tend to cause more serious wounds due to explosion/shrapnel/general-bolter-angriness, so they roll an extra d10, picking the highest. This leads to an average roll of about a 7 being used for damage, so thats 15 points of damage, ignoring the first 4 points of armor, so your average space marine will take 3 damage PER bolter round. Most of the time you fire on semi-auto, so you'll probably hit twice on average. Assuming the astartes doesn't ninja-dodge (super annoying mechanic sometimes), he'll die from about 4 bursts from a bolter (half a magazine round abouts)

So yeah, a bolter will pretty much kill a space marine fairly easily. Bolters straight up bypass eldar armor, generally turning them to paste if they take a hit or two directly.
Tau are in one of the side books I dont have, but necrons are *slightly* less durable than an astartes, due to space marines having superior armor.

Then you get to terminator armor. Terminator armor soaks 14 damage. Terminators have precisely 0 cares about taking a bolter to the face. It just annoys them. Don't do it.

Uh, if terminator armour soaks 14, and bolters have a penetration of 4 and do d10+9 damage, won't the bolter do 0-8 damage?

Space Marine toughness soaks another 8.

StarHunter25 wrote:
For accurate-ish portrayals of weapon damage, I tend to look at the various 40k rpg's from FFG. In Black Crusade (game I'm currently in) A space marine has on average 20 wounds, his armour soaks 8 points of damage, and his natural space marine toughness soaks about another 8,

So thats 20 wounds, soaking the first 16 points of damage on average. An astartes bolter does a d10+9, witha penetration of 4. Also, due to the horrendous nature of bolter ammuntion, they tend to cause more serious wounds due to explosion/shrapnel/general-bolter-angriness, so they roll an extra d10, picking the highest. This leads to an average roll of about a 7 being used for damage, so thats 15 points of damage, ignoring the first 4 points of armor, so your average space marine will take 3 damage PER bolter round. Most of the time you fire on semi-auto, so you'll probably hit twice on average. Assuming the astartes doesn't ninja-dodge (super annoying mechanic sometimes), he'll die from about 4 bursts from a bolter (half a magazine round abouts)

So yeah, a bolter will pretty much kill a space marine fairly easily. Bolters straight up bypass eldar armor, generally turning them to paste if they take a hit or two directly.
Tau are in one of the side books I dont have, but necrons are *slightly* less durable than an astartes, due to space marines having superior armor.

Then you get to terminator armor. Terminator armor soaks 14 damage. Terminators have precisely 0 cares about taking a bolter to the face. It just annoys them. Don't do it.

I don't think the RPG books are too accurate though, and underpower Eldar.

Aspect Armour should block bolters almost as well as to better than marine power armour.

Depends on the author.

Sometimes armor is so useless you'll wonder why anyone bothers, other times it's so tough that you'll wonder why everything isn't made out of the stuff.

Assuming bolters are being fired with BS4 against a T4 model and a statistically perfect world:
2+ saves: 18 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
3+ saves: 9 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
4+ saves: 6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
5+ saves: 4.5 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
6+ saves: 3.6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound

 changerofways wrote:
Assuming bolters are being fired with BS4 against a T4 model and a statistically perfect world:
2+ saves: 18 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
3+ saves: 9 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
4+ saves: 6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
5+ saves: 4.5 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
6+ saves: 3.6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound

Incorrect, bolters are AP5 and ignore both the 6+ and the 5+ saves.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
Assuming bolters are being fired with BS4 against a T4 model and a statistically perfect world:
2+ saves: 18 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
3+ saves: 9 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
4+ saves: 6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
5+ saves: 4.5 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
6+ saves: 3.6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound

Incorrect, bolters are AP5 and ignore both the 6+ and the 5+ saves.

I think he is including to hit and to wound too.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 changerofways wrote:
Assuming bolters are being fired with BS4 against a T4 model and a statistically perfect world:
2+ saves: 18 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
3+ saves: 9 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
4+ saves: 6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
5+ saves: 4.5 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound
6+ saves: 3.6 bolter shots to get 1 unsaved wound

Incorrect, bolters are AP5 and ignore both the 6+ and the 5+ saves.

I think he is including to hit and to wound too.

Regardless, its incorrect because its based on the assumption that the roll of a single to-hit dice for a model with a bolter is equivalent to the firing of a single round. The shooting rules are an abstraction so its impossible to equate dice rolled to shots fired.

My thoughts:

Space marine: 7

Eldar: 3

Tau: 4

Can be increased by up to 5 times by plot armor.

The Space Marines in FFG's Deathwatch game are purposefully intended to be "Movie Marines", and be capable of tearing tanks apart with their bolters (which the way the dice pool goes, happens more often than not.).

And if a bolter is doing d10+9 Damage, even without the Tearing quality (which is where that "roll an extra d10, choose the highest" rule comes from), average damage of a bolter round is 14.5 damage. With Power Armor rated at 8 Armor Points, that means that even a minimum-damage bolter round (d10 roll of 1, +9) is punching through the armor and hitting the guy inside it.

The Wounds stat in the FFG RPGs is not analogous to the W stat of the wargame. It's more closely matched to "hit points" from D&D, or the "Wounds" score from Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

in the dreadful smurf movie they bring down a mountain with bolter fire.

the real question is, how the hell does a genestealer hit harder than a supersonic bullet round?