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.

Pluckylass wrote:
My understanding from a UK army friend is that many designs of rifles eject the cartridges at high speed from one side only - they don't have resources to spend making 10% of all rifles eject the other way, so everyone shoots right handed so they don't get a cartridge in the eye. I kind of assumed the imperium did something similar.

The UK military firearm, the SA-85, is a bullpup design that ejects spent brass A LOT closer to the face than traditional style rifles. Some bullpups like the PS-90 and FS2000 solve this problem by ejecting out the bottom or front.
With my AR or AK, I can shoot lefty or righty without any problem. Useful for room clearing, (one of the few times I had fun in the army) shooting from cover.
Chances are, GW having random lefty shooters isn't a real concern for the time it would take.
Now, no female guard they don't get a pass, but for this I'll let GW off the hook.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The reason you got your gun in your right hand and melee in the left is that you want the additional precision to shoot at an enemy and as soon as he comes near, you drop the weapon and swap hands for melee.

Discarding your weapon is a capital offence.

Tell that to the Hormagaut charging at you.

That is why there is a Commissar behind you.

My dad worked as a NPS park ranger for a while, he's left-handed but shoots right-handed. I'm right-handed, and I shoot a bow left-handed.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The reason you got your gun in your right hand and melee in the left is that you want the additional precision to shoot at an enemy and as soon as he comes near, you drop the weapon and swap hands for melee.

Discarding your weapon is a capital offence.

Tell that to the Hormagaut charging at you.

That is why there is a Commissar behind you.

Shoot him, watch him drop his weapon, then claim it being a capital offence. I'm a mofo genius.

I would expect more women in the 40k armies a la the Russian WW2 army. When faced with imminent eradication, nations tend to discard their opposition to women in the army.

 TheSilo wrote:
I would expect more women in the 40k armies a la the Russian WW2 army. When faced with imminent eradication, nations tend to discard their opposition to women in the army.

Especially when all of their women look like Sisters of Battle.

 Sparkadia wrote:
Is being left a genetic thing? would the selective genetic breeding of most Guard (read; Cadians) remove the Leftiness from the genetic pool?

I have no idea about how handedness is determined.

(I'm a lefty myself). It is somewhat genetic, but not entirely. It's weird. They've done a LOT of studies on it, and they've had a hard time tracking down all the causes. It's not a simple recessive genetic thing at all. So far it looks like it's determined by a number of genes, and there are some environmental causes.

I've shot either way. Almost all of the time I shoot left handed, and I'm left eye dominant. They made me switch the first I went target shooting halfway through (I was using a friend's shotgun) and they wanted me to swap since the cartridges were being ejected across my face. It didn't really make a difference.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The reason you got your gun in your right hand and melee in the left is that you want the additional precision to shoot at an enemy and as soon as he comes near, you drop the weapon and swap hands for melee.

Discarding your weapon is a capital offence.

Plus, you'd get -1A for not having a pistol and close combat weapon.

In all seriousness, though, I would 100% keep the pistol in my other hand. In SCA you have to qualify with sword + open hand, but everybody immediately graduates to sword + ANYTHING once they can. The idea of deflecting a swinging chainsword with a hand gun is very iffy, but trying to deflect a chainsword with your arm or open hand is going to make you look pretty stupid.

Plus, not all weapons are two-handed, and using a one-handed weapon with two hands is just going to make you awkward and clumsy. knife fighters don't hold their knives in both hands for a variety of good reasons.

 Ailaros wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The reason you got your gun in your right hand and melee in the left is that you want the additional precision to shoot at an enemy and as soon as he comes near, you drop the weapon and swap hands for melee.

Discarding your weapon is a capital offence.

Plus, you'd get -1A for not having a pistol and close combat weapon.

In all seriousness, though, I would 100% keep the pistol in my other hand. In SCA you have to qualify with sword + open hand, but everybody immediately graduates to sword + ANYTHING once they can. The idea of deflecting a swinging chainsword with a hand gun is very iffy, but trying to deflect a chainsword with your arm or open hand is going to make you look pretty stupid.

Plus, not all weapons are two-handed, and using a one-handed weapon with two hands is just going to make you awkward and clumsy. knife fighters don't hold their knives in both hands for a variety of good reasons.

Using a pistol two handed is much more accurate and faster than using it one handed. Usually the same applies with swords unless you're into fencing with foils. If all you have is a pistol and sword, use the pistol two handed until something gets close. (game-wise there's no difference obviously.)

 TheSilo wrote:

I've noticed that some of the special characters are lefties (Yarrick, Lord Solar, and Gaunt seem to be lefties with heir storm bolter/pistols in their left hand)

Are you sure perhaps they prefer a CC weapon in the dominiant hand

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:

I've noticed that some of the special characters are lefties (Yarrick, Lord Solar, and Gaunt seem to be lefties with heir storm bolter/pistols in their left hand)

Are you sure perhaps they prefer a CC weapon in the dominiant hand

Two of them are Commissars. So they need to accurately shoot their own men with their off hand whilst waving insults at the enemy with their good hand.

Pistols and swords are different animals. Adding an extra hand to brace against recoil makes a pistol more accurate, but adding an extra arm to a sword means you can hit a little harder (but not much, ct. two-handed knife again), but you're also a lot clumsier.

History is replete with examples of people using weapons in one hand and something else in their other, and also a much smaller wedge devoted to using huge two handed weapons in both hands.

As far as I'm aware, using a one handed weapon with both hands pretty much only happens in fantasy novels and hollywood swordfights with one brief exception during the renaissance after sword fighting was obsolete anyways.

 Ailaros wrote:
knife fighters don't hold their knives in both hands for a variety of good reasons.

Unless you're going to war with this knife
(which, again, makes you look a little silly.)

Purifier wrote:Unless you're going to war with this knife

LOL!

Yes. I'm going to bring my tactical mini-batlith.

Oh, or they could be foresters. Badass foresters who know how to swing a mean draw knife:



Come, let us hew the enemies of the emperor until they have been planed smooth! Forward!

 Ailaros wrote:
As far as I'm aware, using a one handed weapon with both hands pretty much only happens in fantasy novels and hollywood swordfights with one brief exception during the renaissance after sword fighting was obsolete anyways.

Apparently defensive postures with mid-sized swords often rely on a two handed grip. Or so I'm told.

I love the hewing. Man, that's a close combat weapon if I ever heard of one. You actually have to embrace your enemy to be able to work your hewing technique.

Maybe all left-handed people where eradicated in the great Left-Right Hand Wars of M20?
I've heard that the Hand Wars were extremely devastating.

Aren't space marines ambidextrous?

Now I want to make a left handed chaos lord.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Maybe all left-handed people where eradicated in the great Left-Right Hand Wars of M20?
I've heard that the Hand Wars were extremely devastating.

Vibrating rods were the D-weapons of the day.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Aren't space marines ambidextrous?

Now I want to make a left handed chaos lord.

Mine is.

The 'Why is everyone right handed?' query is one of those topics that springs up periodically, along with the 'Why is everyone bald?' one... with the answer every time being the same - they're not.

There are plenty of left-handed models scattered throughout the range. The basic troops with two-handed weapons though tend to lean towards right handedness simply because it keeps the models more standardised, which is better for modelling.

 Purifier wrote:
Apparently defensive postures with mid-sized swords often rely on a two handed grip. Or so I'm told.

I love the hewing. Man, that's a close combat weapon if I ever heard of one. You actually have to embrace your enemy to be able to work your hewing technique.

From what I remember of a summer of kumdo lessons (Korean verson of kendo), defensive is all two handed grips..but that's intended for katanas.

Space marines are almost certainly ambidextrous, as its more advantageous for combat situations. For the rest of the range its just ease of modeling to make them all right handed.

For the record I'm left handed, left eye dominant and left foot dominant, I write, shoot, kick, swing a golf club and a base ball bat left handed, but if i was an assault marine I would actually want the melee weapon in my dominant hand for finer control in melee, where as I could shoot passably with a pistol in my right hand, especially at the ranges ASMs will engage.

It's just laziness in modeling.

A bias towards right-handedness is incredibly common throughout society. Thankfully ti's usually not too big a deal, but it does get annoying when someone provides me right-hand-only scissors and I awkwardly use my right hand hoping I don't cut myself.

You know, what more interesting is how many lefties have posted in this thread, meaning the thread titles attracted us or more lefties play wargames.

The lefties are smarter than the rest of them is all.
They are lying in wait - when all of the right handers have killed themselves off in pointless battle after pointless battle, they will rise, triumphant.

Then they will be eaten by the no-dominant handed tyranids.


(posted AS a left hander.).

Everything dies in 40k. Or it gets eaten. Or tortured. If you are really lucky, that's the order it happens in.

 Purifier wrote:
I love the hewing. Man, that's a close combat weapon if I ever heard of one. You actually have to embrace your enemy to be able to work your hewing technique.

That thing would be perfect the perfect trolling weapon for infiltrators. Why use a knife or garrote when you sneak up behind a sentry when you can use a woodworking tool?
It should also give you preferred enemy (Wood Elves)


On the lefties, there are a surprising number of them in the Legion of the Damned.

I just wanted a right-handed Lash Whip for my Tyranid Warriors.

Was that so much to ask for?

*sniffle*

According to this poll, most Dakkaites think that Dark Eldar Wyches are left handed. (And some Assault Marines.)

There are a lot of good arguments, I am a leftie and shoot both handed but learned right handed, being a machine gunner in the army my M60 was right hand only feed( ammo loaded from the left ejected from right.) my M16 ejected from the right though if you were lucky you could procure a brass deflector to fire left handed and not get hot brass burns on neck and down your chest. So with las weapons the point is mute and as far as bolters and such, power armor. Pistols, well that is another subject. Knife and sword it is good to train both hands equally.

Everyone is born right handed, but only the best can overcome it.

/leftistpropaganda

I remember firing a bolt action rifle in summer camp way back when as a lefty, and it was awkward. 40k guns are going to be much easier to fire with either hand.

I make a point to model a few of my guys shooting left.

But it’s a well know fact that lefties are more prone to heresy and treason. We are, after all, sinister.