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 Ghazkuul wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Yes but they don't run around DS and having 5 of them lumped into a single unit. not to mention the high leadership and 2+ save and 5+ invul

Warp spider's mobility is more valuable than 2+/5++. Especially for the price difference. Even if you give them assault cannons, they are completely inferior to grav cents. That tells you how bad they are now.

your right, being able to move closer to the gunz that are mowing you down is way more valuable then being able to save the number of wounds your getting.

Warp spiders played corrected get very little return fire is there is LOS blocking on the board. And their firepower is crazy.

Again your comparing 1 aspect of a unit to that of terminators and not the entire stat line. Terminators crush spiders in CC and can survive shots that would liquify the spiders. But instead your thinking (yet again) that "spiders shoot so much compared to my expensive terminators."

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Again your comparing 1 aspect of a unit to that of terminators and not the entire stat line. Terminators crush spiders in CC and can survive shots that would liquify the spiders. But instead your thinking (yet again) that "spiders shoot so much compared to my expensive terminators."

Terminators can never catch spiders, so that is moot. I'm not sure terminators actually have better durability/pt than warp spiders.

Like I said earlier and probably in a different post, you hate most of your army. If you hate Terminators, Land Raiders and Tactical Marines why don't you switch armies so people don't see 3-4 different topics in this forum about changing the models to make you a better player.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Like I said earlier and probably in a different post, you hate most of your army. If you hate Terminators, Land Raiders and Tactical Marines why don't you switch armies so people don't see 3-4 different topics in this forum about changing the models to make you a better player.

Are those three units most of my army? Especially given that you know I refuse to use two of them?

Im convinced at this point your getting destroyed in your games and your complaining about units to try and balance the ego loss.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Im convinced at this point your getting destroyed in your games and your complaining about units to try and balance the ego loss.

I believe I've been open and honest with my track record vs Eldar/Tau/Gravstars. Making the changes in these threads wouldn't even help against those lists. So there goes your theory.

pelicaniforce wrote:
I feel like the posts about salvo storm bolters have a fair amount of merit. I mean, of course the content is really weak and hard to respect. However, sometimes posting in proposed rules isn't about earnestly seeking good rules, it's about quacking. So maybe those are very successful posts.

When I'm trying out new rules, it is somewhere that uses house rules, obviously. So I always value Martel732, because the ideal rule, even if it is fluffy or narrative, functions perfectly in a non-fluffy, non-narrative competition.

What I get from that principle, is that if you take a storm bolter and make it assault 4, shred, and pinning, you have done effectively nothing. Even a full, ten model tactical squad upgraded to these weapons is not worth additional points, because its power is against a narrow group of low-priority targets that are often entirely absent from the opposing army.

You have a straight up tactical squad with bolters, and your new weapon traits, or straight up shred and pinning, but the problems are that first, the point of the squad is still theoretically to deploy a plasma gun, or melta gun, or missile launcher, and second, if you are facing mechanized-anything, or Necrons, or MEq anything, your bolters are exercises for you dice hands, if you use them at all.


Speaking of exercises, Tearing adds an additional set of dice to roll to the shooting of every single unit in the army, even though it doesn't add any new capability, e.g. penetrating vehicles, piercing armor, wounding MCs, to the gun. I like rules like gauss or bladestorm, that do allow new things, but use the same dice rolls that would be made with regular las rifles.


Ok, it is a mistake to change the storm bolter without considering that all bolt guns can change. However, I want to use the same dice rolls, and I want to do something new. E.g.: Rolls to wound of six count as a strength 8 weapon. You can wound wraithknights, you can pen most FNP and WBB, you can ID. Like I say though: "example;" that try has some problems.

So, first off, I fully acknowledge that Storm/Tearing are additional complications to an already complicated game. Secondly, Tearing is NOT "roll an extra dice, discard the lowest" in the wargame iteration I propose. The variation I propose is that it allows a weapon with that trait to re-roll a To-Wound roll of "1". IE, you make your usual To-Wound rolls, with no additional dice added, and the trait allows an rolls of "1" to be re-rolled.

What you refer to is the original trait as described in the 40K RPGs from FFG, which I drew inspiration from. I would also like to mention the fact that only one army can deploy a Stormbolter as an actual special weapon- the Sisters of Battle. My main issue with Stormbolters as-is, is that they're only taken under two conditions:

1) Unit has one stock; IE, you don't get to choose to have it, and you can't change it for something better
2) It's taken to be an ablative "wound" so that the important gun on a tank (usually an Exorcist of Vindicator) can continue shooting things

Squad leaders which can pick between a combi-weapon and a Stormbolter never choose the Stormbolter, even though it's half the cost of a combi. IMO a Stormbolter, in its current state, is not worth 5 points for an infantry model. As a useful spare gun on a vehicle, it's not worth 5 points. It's only barely worth 5 points when you consider the fact that it allows a much more useful gun (like the Exorcist Launcher/Demolisher Cannon) to continue firing by soaking a Weapon Destroyed result. I'd even say that a Stormbolter would really only be worth 1 or 2 points- keeping in mind that mechanically you're not so much paying to put a guy on the field with a bolter and a stormbolter, but to replace the former with the latter. Any cost the former imposes should not be in addition to the full cost of the latter- that's just nonsensical.

With that being said, I will probably amend the suggestion later (it's pretty late here), to being a much simpler Assault 3 and Shred; mechanically it's not quite as potent, but it's also simpler and reuses existing rules. It should be a viable option compared to the flexibility of a combi-weapon, and it should be effective enough to merit the costs imposed by those models whose primary weapon is a Stormbolter.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Fixing Storm Bolters. ......

Done. See what I did just then? the answer is nothing which is what would fix a storm bolter.

Its 2 bolters strapped side by side and it gets assault 2 instead of rapid fire. Furthermore its only two points more expensive then a twin linked shoota which is AP6 and 18inch range. So garbage compared to a storm bolter. Stop complaining about every aspect of terminators.

Chaos Marines would like to have a word with you about Combi-Bolters. Which are literally two Bolters strapped together, and as such the only benefit it has is that it gains Twin-Linked.

I'd also like to mention that:

1) Shootas are the basic grunt gun. A twin-linked shoota should be compared to a Combi-Bolter, as they are functionally identical (18" Assault 2 S4 AP6 Twin Linked vs 24" Rapid Fire S4 AP5 Twin Linked).
2) Terminators are an Elite Heavy Infantry choice, not a line grunt. Their guns should be better.
3) Stormbolters are not two Bolters strapped together. It's actually a fairly complex fire-synced weapon that fires both mechanisms simultaneously. It doesn't haphazardly strap two guns together and then cobble a single trigger mechanism together. It's actually designed around be a twin-barrel, single feed weapon system.

The fact is that stormbolters are ass in every application they get used for. Get over it. If you want to complain about how Orks get shafted compared to Marines, then make your own damn thread.

Im not complaining about orks in this thread, im pointing out that your weapon is better then your equivalent in the Ork list. So complaining about how it doesn't do enough for your elite troops is comparable to me complaining that TL Shootas aren't good enough for my Meganobz. It is a basic weapon that is wicked cheap and double the rate of fire for the model, compared to a regular bolter.

 pretre wrote:
It's basically two bolters, so just make it TL Assault 2.

This isn't a bad idea. Could offset the costs and problems for tac dreads as they are. Not a true fix (bandaid over a bullet hole) but its something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Fixing Storm Bolters. ......

Done. See what I did just then? the answer is nothing which is what would fix a storm bolter.

Its 2 bolters strapped side by side and it gets assault 2 instead of rapid fire. Furthermore its only two points more expensive then a twin linked shoota which is AP6 and 18inch range. So garbage compared to a storm bolter. Stop complaining about every aspect of terminators.

than...

It is more expensive than a twin linked shoota (author's emphasis)

I'm just poking man. I play orks also, and I think SBs do need something. Because tac terminators don't scare me when a mob with a nob armed with a power claw jumps off a truck. Even if I only kill 2 of them, I tied them up for a few turns and made up some points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I agree about shootas, but its an ork weapon so I just figure it is crude and crap. I think I only use one weapon with them. Everything else I got is slugga and choppas

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Im not complaining about orks in this thread, im pointing out that your weapon is better then your equivalent in the Ork list. So complaining about how it doesn't do enough for your elite troops is comparable to me complaining that TL Shootas aren't good enough for my Meganobz. It is a basic weapon that is wicked cheap and double the rate of fire for the model, compared to a regular bolter.

Do you even know what the profile of a Bolter is? I ask, because Stormbolters only conditionally have superior rate of fire over a Bolter. Here's the profiles:

Stormbolter
24" Assault 2 S4 AP5

Bolter
24" Rapid Fire S4 AP5

So as we can see, the only time the Stormbolter "out-dakkas" the regular Bolter is when the two weapons are considered in the 12-24" band. Up close- which is theoretically where Terminators want to be, on account of having a powerfist for whatever reason- the two weapons have identical damage output.

In other words, if Terminators are supposed to out-damage a Tac Marine squad, then they should never need to use their powerfists. Which means that Terminators are overcosted, on account of having a piece of equipment that is useless to them, as a primarily shooting-oriented unit.

Additionally, Grey Knights are the only army in the game that has Stormbolters as the basic primary weapon. As I've just demonstrated, a Stormbolter is functionally equivalent to a Bolter. There's literally almost nothing useful you can do with a Stormbolter that you cannot do with a bolter. On top of that, Stormbolters aren't "basic weapons". They're equivalent in purpose to the 'high-end' basic firearms of other Elite infantry. Equivalents would be DE Shardcarbines (18" Assault 3 S1 AP5 Poison 4+) or IG Hotshot Lasguns (18" Rapid Fire S3 AP3).

Other equivalents include Eldar Deathspinners (12" Assault 2 S6 AP- 'Monofilament'; the rule allows To-Wound rolls of "6" it's an auto-wound at AP1), Wraithcannons (12" Assault 1 S10 AP2 Distort), and D-Scythes (Template Assault 1 S4 AP2 Distort). So buffing Stormbolters is by far not unreasonable.

If you have a problem with a Terminator having a better gun, well, maybe I should complain that Terminators can't take twin Chainfists or combi-heavy flamers like MANz get. Or maybe I should complain that Terminators only have one wound and MANz get two. If you bring up the profile difference again, then why don't we just have ourselves a look at the statline for a Terminator and a MAN:

Terminator

WS4 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I4 A2 Ld9 2+

Mega Armor Nob

WS4 BS2 S4 T4 W2 I3 A3 Ld7 2+

So I'll give you that Terminators have superior Leadership and BS. Initiative for Tac Termies or Hammernators is irrelevant, as they carry almost all Unwieldy weapons, reducing them to Initiative 1, and a power sword on the Sarge might be able to punch an Ork before the Ork can react, but it's not going to do jack against a MAN, considering power swords are AP3.

What I'd like to point out is that MANz have 2 wounds (which is far superior in the "spam S6/7=WIN" meta of 7th), and get an additional attack on all of their guys. In fact, a basic grunt MAN gets more attacks than any SM model short of a Captain. And you get to load up on heavy flamer equivalents for all of five points. I sure wish SM Sternguard still had 5 point combi weapons, but the 6th edition book made Sternguard combis twice as expensive. I sure wish Terminators could actually take combi weapons, but apparently that's a Chaos-only thing.

A MAN having a gun is just a case of him getting something to do while he's trying to get into combat. A Terminator having a gun is so he can spend all his time shooting things in the face. So yes, the Terminator should absolutely get a better basic gun, seeing as how Tac Termies getting into combat is wasting what useful guns they can be given.

See Ghaz? I'm not the lone nut out there ranting at the wind. Other players can do math, too. The stormbolter sucks. If you play a marine list with a lot of them, most other lists will crush you.

Whiskey144 wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
I feel like the posts about salvo storm bolters have a fair amount of merit. I mean, of course the content is really weak and hard to respect. However, sometimes posting in proposed rules isn't about earnestly seeking good rules, it's about quacking. So maybe those are very successful posts.

When I'm trying out new rules, it is somewhere that uses house rules, obviously. So I always value Martel732, because the ideal rule, even if it is fluffy or narrative, functions perfectly in a non-fluffy, non-narrative competition.

What I get from that principle, is that if you take a storm bolter and make it assault 4, shred, and pinning, you have done effectively nothing. Even a full, ten model tactical squad upgraded to these weapons is not worth additional points,

The variation I propose is that it allows a weapon with that trait to re-roll a To-Wound roll of "1". IE, you make your usual To-Wound rolls, with no additional dice added, and the trait allows an rolls of "1" to be re-rolled.



Squad leaders which can pick between a combi-weapon and a Stormbolter never choose the Stormbolter, even though it's half the cost of a combi




With that being said, I will probably amend the suggestion later (it's pretty late here), to being a much simpler Assault 3 and Shred; mechanically it's not quite as potent, but it's also simpler and reuses existing rules. It should be a viable option compared to the flexibility of a combi-weapon, and it should be effective enough to merit the costs imposed by those models whose primary weapon is a Stormbolter.

You're still talking about strength 4 shooting, which isn't worth it. Players don't want to use points on an elite unit that does s4 shooting, and don't want to buy a character upgrade that does s4 shooting.

How are you going to get around that? Strength 4 with a re-roll is still strength 4. It doesn't kill vehicles, light vehicles, high-toughness units, multi-wound creatures, or heavy infantry. It kills regular infantry - both GEq and MEq - and that blows. Usually those things don't even need be killed, and if they do, you don't need to buy a special unit or upgrade to kill them.

pelicaniforce wrote:
You're still talking about strength 4 shooting, which isn't worth it. Players don't want to use points on an elite unit that does s4 shooting, and don't want to buy a character upgrade that does s4 shooting.

How are you going to get around that? Strength 4 with a re-roll is still strength 4. It doesn't kill vehicles, light vehicles, high-toughness units, multi-wound creatures, or heavy infantry. It kills regular infantry - both GEq and MEq - and that blows. Usually those things don't even need be killed, and if they do, you don't need to buy a special unit or upgrade to kill them.

The problem is that I don't see any way that's consistent or logical to make Stormbolters something besides S4. Yes, you do have a point that S4 shooting is lackluster, especially in an army already awash with numerous sources of S4 guns. With Terminators a lot of the improvement to be made really comes down to the other weapons that you can take on them. Stormbolters being buffed to Assault 3 is mostly to help Terminators not be out-dakka'd by an equal cost in Tactical Marines who are also equipped with special/heavy weapons and Rhino transports (!).

The other side of the coin, however, is that Stormbolters are the primary pintle weapon of Imperial vehicles, a character weapon upgrade for almost every Marine/Sisters squad, and even a special weapon for the SoB. At this point, it may just be the case that Stormbolters need to be ridiculously cheap (as in, 2 or 3 points for a character/SoB special weapon), in order for the Stormbolter to be a viable choice compared to the combi-weapons. In the "Fixing Terminators" thread, there was a pretty interesting suggestion that would allow Stormbolters to overwatch at full BS; here's the quote:

 NorseSig wrote:
Storm Bolters are Assault 3 and may be used at full BS in overwatch if you choose to fire snap shots in the shooting phase. This is declared before firing in the shooting phase.

It's an interesting idea, and could potentially incentivize taking a Stormbolter on a squad leader.

Of course, it might be dismissed as entirely irrelevant, since it's still just an S4 gun. Unfortunately I think that the devaluing of small arms and lighter anti-infantry weapons is something that would require substantial overhaul to the core mechanics- or at least the balance of most armies- to actually fix. The meta, for whatever reason, considers spamming S6/7 weapons to be the winning strategy, while a unit can only be "durable" if it is at least T5. Whatever is causing that is similarly causing basic anti-infantry shooting to be heavily devalued. Of course, I'm not actually certain what caused this shift, so I don't really have any idea of how it can be fixed.

Just give storm bolters access to special issue ammo. Terminators are just stern guard in better armor. Seems odd that by changing suits you suddenly loose access to part of your first company armory, and storm bolters are just two bolters strapped together.

Whiskey144 wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
You're still talking about strength 4 shooting, which isn't worth it. Players don't want to use points on an elite unit that does s4 shooting, and don't want to buy a character upgrade that does s4 shooting.

How are you going to get around that? Strength 4 with a re-roll is still strength 4. It doesn't kill vehicles, light vehicles, high-toughness units, multi-wound creatures, or heavy infantry. It kills regular infantry - both GEq and MEq - and that blows. Usually those things don't even need be killed, and if they do, you don't need to buy a special unit or upgrade to kill them.

The problem is that I don't see any way that's consistent or logical to make Stormbolters something besides S4. Yes, you do have a point that S4 shooting is lackluster, especially in an army already awash with numerous sources of S4 guns.

Well, there are Gauss, Tesla, Splinter-poison, and Bladestorm. You had been putting rules onto all bolt weapons, hadn't you?

With Terminators a lot of the improvement to be made really comes down to the other weapons that you can take on them. Stormbolters being buffed to Assault 3 is mostly to help Terminators not be out-dakka'd by an equal cost in Tactical Marines who are also equipped with special/heavy weapons and Rhino transports (!).

The other side of the coin, however, is that Stormbolters are the primary pintle weapon of Imperial vehicles, a character weapon upgrade for almost every Marine/Sisters squad, and even a special weapon for the SoB. At this point, it may just be the case that Stormbolters need to be ridiculously cheap (as in, 2 or 3 points for a character/SoB special weapon), in order for the Stormbolter to be a viable choice compared to the combi-weapons. In the "Fixing Terminators" thread, there was a pretty interesting suggestion that would allow Stormbolters to overwatch at full BS; here's the quote:

 NorseSig wrote:
Storm Bolters are Assault 3 and may be used at full BS in overwatch if you choose to fire snap shots in the shooting phase. This is declared before firing in the shooting phase.

It's an interesting idea, and could potentially incentivize taking a Stormbolter on a squad leader.

Of course, it might be dismissed as entirely irrelevant, since it's still just an S4 gun. Unfortunately I think that the devaluing of small arms and lighter anti-infantry weapons is something that would require substantial overhaul to the core mechanics- or at least the balance of most armies- to actually fix. The meta, for whatever reason, considers spamming S6/7 weapons to be the winning strategy, while a unit can only be "durable" if it is at least T5. Whatever is causing that is similarly causing basic anti-infantry shooting to be heavily devalued. Of course, I'm not actually certain what caused this shift, so I don't really have any idea of how it can be fixed.

In 2002, high toughness on units was unusual, and any very high strength weapon had a good chance of destroying a tank.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Well, there are Gauss, Tesla, Splinter-poison, and Bladestorm. You had been putting rules onto all bolt weapons, hadn't you?

Yes, I did initially propose some newly-designed bonus rules for all Bolt weapons. However, I have since revised my opinion that it would actually help- at least, not in the fashion that I initially considered. It's also worth noting that, alas, my ideas do not really mirror how Gauss/Tesla/Bladestorm scale so amazingly well. Truth be told, I consider Bladestorm to be a bit overperforming in comparison to other basic weapons. Monofilament is, however, quite a bit worse IMO, but is also relatively rare. Distort, Gauss, Tesla, and Splinter-poison I take no issue with, as they have their limits (mostly... *cough* WK *cough*); for example Gauss is auto-wound/-glance on a 6, but it still has to deal with saving throws from armor/cover/invulnerable saves. Tesla generates two bonus hits on a 6, but cannot leverage this in snapfire conditions (which was slightly over the top when it could). Splinter-poison scales tremendously well against high-T anything, but is utterly helpless against vehicles.

Distort weapons are generally saddled with a very short range, on relatively slow platforms. Wraithknights are really the only outlier in this particular case, with a very long range Distort weapon, on a very mobile and durable platform. This is related, incidentally, to a problem that was briefly touched on in the 40K GD forum, in the thread about Bladestorm 'hate'. It comes down to the fact that most Troops units that are "good" are units whose default weapons scale well. As an example, Eldar DAs and Bladestorm. Or perhaps an even better one (since most competitive Eldar players tend to take min-sized DA squads purely to get Wave Serpents), Necron Warriors (or Immortals) with Gauss weapons. There is also something to be said for GK Terminators as well, since they are a Troops choice and incorporate Force weapons (IE, something that scales). Unfortunately GK Termies are not nearly as good, due to the limitations on having to get into combat to leverage their 'scalable' weapons, something that is quite difficult to do in the face of mass S6/7 weaponry on mobile platforms (like WS, for example).

The traits I proposed for Bolt weapons would have been a slight improvement against targets that they already do well against. It's why I'm becoming less and less attached to improving Stormbolters past giving them Assault 3 instead of Assault 2. Part of that is, however, because there's very little support, it seems, for actually making Stormbolters a more useful infantry weapon.

pelicaniforce wrote:
In 2002, high toughness on units was unusual, and any very high strength weapon had a good chance of destroying a tank.

And in 2015 high Toughness has become the standard, and very-high-strength weapons found wanting due to low RoF. Times, and the meta, change. I'm leaning towards the idea that it has changed slightly for the worse, though from what I understand 6th edition was slightly- though only slightly- better.

1/325AIR wrote:
Just give storm bolters access to special issue ammo. Terminators are just stern guard in better armor. Seems odd that by changing suits you suddenly loose access to part of your first company armory, and storm bolters are just two bolters strapped together.

This would probably be broken. The main issue is, as you said, that "Terminators are just Sternguard in better armor". This is a bad idea. I do not think that giving Stormbolters access to Special-Issue Ammunition is necessarily bad, per se. But there should be a limit on it. My own take is that if Stormbolters get special ammo, then you should have to pick which one you want as the extra profile. I say "extra" because Vengeance rounds would not be particularly good as an "all-the-time" upgrade, due to losing 6" of range and being penalized with Gets Hot. On the flipside, we could instead device Stormbolter-specific special ammo... which would be kind of awesome. Maybe even stat up some Heavy Bolter and Shotgun specific options as well, and then allow Sternguard to take Shotguns/Stormbolters in place of regular Boltguns. This opens up some additional shooting versatility, and potential for some interesting units, IMO.

Also, Stormbolters are not "just two bolters strapped together". That particular combination is specifically referred to as a "Combi-Bolter". A Stormbolter is actually fire-synced so that both barrels fire simultaneously, every time you pull the trigger. In contrast, a Combi-Bolter is not fire-synced, and so it lacks the sheer RoF potential of a Stormbolter, instead gaining Twin-Linked.

Incidentally, if we improve Stormbolters, we'll need to fix Combi-Bolters as well.

Why not Rapid Fire 2, really? It's common to the entire S4 Bolter path, it scales with the other weapons, and Termies with Relentless don't suffer from being unable to charge.

Whiskey144 wrote:
The meta, for whatever reason, considers spamming S6/7 weapons to be the winning strategy, while a unit can only be "durable" if it is at least T5. Whatever is causing that is similarly causing basic anti-infantry shooting to be heavily devalued. Of course, I'm not actually certain what caused this shift, so I don't really have any idea of how it can be fixed.

A lot of the popular or undercosted power units are AV11+ or T5+, so S3/S4 weapons can't really hurt them well. At BS4, it takes something like 10 shots to put a wound on a Riptide, 60 shots for an unsaved wound. S6 needs something like 24 shots to cause an unsaved wound, S7 needs 18 shots.

If you take a squadron of War Walkers w/2x SL, at 210pts, you get 24x S6 shots and better range as well. You'd need 840pts of Tac Marines to do the same damage at 24".

So basically you have 6x the damage against bigger targets at S6, and there's lots of undercosted big targets in the meta. Flyrants, Riptides, Wave Serpents, Wraithknights, Knights, etc...

The reason "why not Rapid Fire 2" is mostly because I keep forgetting about it as an option. It actually sounds pretty awesome too. The only possible issue I see is that it's not really... well, 'idiot-proof', how you'd phrase a Rapid Fire weapon that fires more shots than the common varieties.

Perhaps Rapid Fire weapons should be classified as "Rapid Fire 2/1", merely reversing the nomenclature of Salvo weapons- more shots at half range, but able to fire fewer at longer range, even if you move. Of course, the catch with that is is that it may become confusing since Rapid Fire and Salvo weapons are still somewhat similar rules-wise.

Also, thank you for the enlightening view of why S6/7 is so popular these days, especially the explanation of the "mathhammer" behind it.

So here's the thing with what's wrong with Storm Bolters.

I am effectively paying 5 points for... an extra shot at long range.

Yay.

Storm Bolters were over-costed at 3 PPM. At 5 they're a fricken joke.

Which is an excellent summary of why we need to fix them. Even if the main thing they offer is just "you get more bullets per mang", they should actually be worth the cost.

I don't mind a Stormbolter being a 5 point upgrade, as long as it's actually worth the cost.

Incidentally, after some thought, perhaps a "Rapid Fire 4/3" profile, where it gets 4 shots at 0-12", and 3 shots at 12-24"? That might be worth the 5 points that SBs are apparently supposed to cost.

My idea is this

Make storm bolters assault 3

You can shoot snapshots in your shooting phase to get full BS with storm bolters in the overwatch

Storm bolters grant an extra melee attack to a model in TDA (like a pistol does except it works even if the weapon has the specialist weapon rule)

A model in TDA may give up the extra attack in melee for a full BS with the storm bolter in overwatch

Storm bolters may be used to make multiple overwatches even if you are in melee, but are made as snap shots after passing a leadership test at -1 leadership

 EmperorsChampion wrote:
Honestly I think they should revamp the Storm Bolter and Heavy Bolter mostly. The regular bolter can get away with being how it is currently, only if it gave tactical marines access to at least one other type of ammo.

Storm bolter should be salvo 2/3 at 24. But sadly, this would hurt GKs the most. Unless it had two modes of fire, the storm bolter needs some work.

Heavy Bolter- Salvo 3/5 with a range of 36. Still S5 AP4.

Do the math on a 5-shot HB. You hae just made autocannons near-pointless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An extra shot at long range is _double the damage output_. So yes, yay.

I feel like the main problem with the Storm Bolter is the fact that it's a relic of the past. Assault 2 was actually a good profile because prior to 6th/7th. You weren't able to move and shoot with rapid fire weapons, like the way you are now. The assault 2 24" profile effectively meant twice the firepower (which isn't true anymore), regardless of having moved and with the ability to assault right after! Since 6th dropped, the "advantage" and primary selling point of the stormbolter simply vanished and GW never got around to fix that. IMO, all TDA should have an additional USR when they are equipped with either combi-bolter/combi-weapon/storm bolter.

"Indominable Firepower" or "Punishing Rate of Fire" or what ever similarly silly "grimdark" name: Allows any model with TDA to fire their combi-bolter/combi-weapon/storm bolter with the following profile: S4, AP5, 24", Assault 4, Pinning.

Fluff reason would be something like; how dudes in awesome TDA can easily unload all the bolts, in both the cartridges, in a single go, with the suit compensating for recoil, while integrated "ancient" and "long lost forgotten", "relic", yada yada nonsense miracles of the past technologies, targeters maintains a steady aim on the target, regardless of its movement, which results in an "extreme" and "grimdark" hail of suppresive fire (thus pinning).

Just my 2 cents though.

You bring up an excellent point- fixing Stormbolters means that Combi-bolters are also up on the chopping block of fixing-ness.

Unfortunately, I feel that your changes kind of miss a big issue with Stormbolters:

They're a 5 point upgrade for many Imperial vehicles, that is almost invariably only taken to provide ablative "Weapon Destroyed" protection, so as to keep a much more useful gun (the Exorcist Launcher and Demolisher Cannon being the most common examples) firing.

I don't think that that's a good reason to throw a spare gun onto the vehicle. There should be a legitimate reason to take it, that doesn't involve "hope it gets blown off instead of my actually relevant gun".

This is why I think that suggestions which revolve around adapting the Rapid Fire mechanics in such a way as to allow increased RoF depending on whether a weapon is "Rapid Fire 1/2", or simply going with Assault 3, are much better options- it's a flat bonus that provides improvement across all use cases, and not just Terminators.

There's also the slight caveat that a Terminator-specific SB could literally be almost any weapon type in the game, and it wouldn't matter, on account of models with TDA getting Relentless.

GK are why it needs to remain assault.
give it 2 profiles,
assault 3 12"
assault 2 24"

Still 2x as good at range, 50% better close range and can assault after. 5 pts for 2 more shots before charging with pf sgt isnt game breaking, but isnt a terrible investment.

Whiskey, a bolter can match a SB in shots at 1-12 inches you are right, but what you forget is that the Tactical Marines are then stranded out in the open without the chance to assault. Terminators can unload their shots and then ASSAULT to utilize their PFs So yeah a bolter can match the damage output but it can't match the utility.

Sorry but a SB as much as you hate it is better then a Bolter, furthermore when you add in the 2+ and 5++ and the ability to literally take out anything in the game with its PFs and Power sword (Sergeant) you have a great unit, As I said it is overpriced so give it a 5 point reduction.

Ghazkuul wrote:Like I said earlier and probably in a different post, you hate most of your army. If you hate Terminators, Land Raiders and Tactical Marines why don't you switch armies so people don't see 3-4 different topics in this forum about changing the models to make you a better player.

Ghazkuul wrote:Im convinced at this point your getting destroyed in your games and your complaining about units to try and balance the ego loss.

It seems we have a rash of inappropriate behaviour in here, and frankly, it's getting tiresome.

The proposed rules forum is here for people to propose changes to the rules of the game. You may not like some of those ideas. That's fine. But that's no excuse for ridiculing the poster making a suggestion.

Pointing out (politely!) why you think a given idea is the wrong way to go is just fine. As is offering ideas as to how the idea could be refined or improved. That's part of the point of posting these ideas in the first place.

Simply slamming someone for having the temerity to float an idea? Nope, not acceptable. The same rules on spam and inappropriate behaviour apply here as in the rest of the site.

Please keep in mind that the forum caters to people of all ages, and who don't always enjoy the same aspects of the game that you do. If you see a post that seems to be based more in youthful enthusiasm than in balanced game design, take that as an opportunity to help someone develop their ideas, rather than to stifle someone who is just trying to add a little something different to their game of toy soldiers.

This is from the sticky for this forum topic
I think maybe we should calm down a bit, we are all friends here talking about ideas. cheers.

Your probably right, I apologize for the ad hominems, It just get's to me seeing the same 2-3 people complaining about every little thing in their armies and then shooting down any idea that does not make it unbalanced or OP as heck. I'll refrain from commenting on space marine lists for a bit because that seems to be the most dominant ones that bug me.

 Traceoftoxin wrote:
GK are why it needs to remain assault.
give it 2 profiles,
assault 3 12"
assault 2 24"

Still 2x as good at range, 50% better close range and can assault after. 5 pts for 2 more shots before charging with pf sgt isnt game breaking, but isnt a terrible investment.

Firstly, a PF Sarge in a Tac squad is a terrible idea. Anything that it will help kill, is also more likely to simply wipe the squad before the sarge ever gets to swing. Also, what happens when a savvy opponent gives their squad leader a power sword, and then challenges out your sarge? Because if you accept the challenge, it's a good chance that your opponent's character will simply cut down the PF sarge- again, before said PF model ever gets to swing, and thus making that PF a total waste of points.

Secondly, it's not that hard to give GKs a specific variant of the Stormbolter that's not quite as good as the traditional Terminator/PA-Marine/Pintle-mount version. It's also ridiculously easy to explain- even the might of a Space Marine can only compensate for so much difficulty in weapon control, and so a lower rate of fire had to be adopted for the GK-specific SBs. Boom, done, no longer a problem.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Whiskey, a bolter can match a SB in shots at 1-12 inches you are right, but what you forget is that the Tactical Marines are then stranded out in the open without the chance to assault. Terminators can unload their shots and then ASSAULT to utilize their PFs So yeah a bolter can match the damage output but it can't match the utility.

Sorry but a SB as much as you hate it is better then a Bolter, furthermore when you add in the 2+ and 5++ and the ability to literally take out anything in the game with its PFs and Power sword (Sergeant) you have a great unit, As I said it is overpriced so give it a 5 point reduction.

Firstly, Ghaz, you do remember that Terminators are Relentless, right? Which means they don't give a damn what weapon type they have, because they can always move, shoot, and charge, all in the same term, regardless of what armaments they fired. Not only that, but what's to say that Tacs are stranded in the open if they're in Rapid Fire range? I mean, seriously, why wouldn't they be sitting in cover? Not only that, but against a number of armies, Tacs don't really care if they're in the open or not, on account of power armor.

Secondly, Bolters matching the RoF of Stormbolters at 0-12" is the bloody problem. When I can literally, take twenty Tacs, give them special and heavy weapons, and Rhinos with HKMs, for the exact same price as ten Termies with a pair of ACs, then why in God's name would I ever, logically-speaking, deploy Terminators? Seriously, why?

As it happens, those Tacs offer an identical number of S4/AP5 shots at 12-24", superior volume of fire at 0-12", plus additional versatility/flexibility due to be able to choose from an assortment of AP2/AP1 short-medium range guns, along with a few high-strength guns (ML, LC, MM).

Moreover, Stormbolter "utility" only matters if you do not have Relentless. Except that the utility almost never matters, because most of the units that would think "hey, a SB giving me extra long range shots? sounds good!" are also going to actively avoid assaulting things, for as long as they can possibly manage it.

You're also ignoring the fact that the things that a Terminator will want to shoot with a Stormbolter are pretty much some of the shittiest things to try and kill with a PF- Stormbolters are passable at killing light infantry. PFs suck at doing that, because you're paying an exorbitant price for AP2 and double Strength... both of which are, in fact, useless in a fight against mass T3- or even T4- horde infantry. Against horde/light infantry, you want weight of fire/attacks, not quality. Powerfists are admittedly a high-quality attack... it's just that that quality is entirely wasted trying to punch things like Guardsmen or Orks to death.

Seriously, what about that is hard to understand? Stormbolters=light infantry killers, Powerfists=MC/vehicle killers. Those target types are incompatible with each other.

And again, I do not want a 5 point price reduction on Terminators. What I want, is for them to actually be worth their cost. Quite frankly, the increasingly cheap costs of many units has lead to balance issues IMO. Not only that, but it also leads to increasingly unwieldy forces for the generally recommend 6x4' tables.

The only valid reason, IMO, to make Terminators cheaper is to change their PF to a power weapon. Oh, sure, you might think it's the best think ever, but the fact is that if I wanted a Terminator to punch things at S8/AP2, then I'd be better off spending the extra 5 points to take Hammernators instead, because the Stormbolter isn't worth paying for on something I want to stay in combat for as much time as possible.

Finally, you have continued to ignore that Terminators, while the most iconic user of Stormbolters, are by far not the most common. In fact, I'd argue that Imperial vehicles are much more likely to include a Stormbolter- not to mention the fact that (as many do) you seem to have forgotten that Stormbolters are actually a special weapon upgrade for SoB squads. In the former case, Imperial players throw a SB onto a vehicle in order to reduce the likelihood of the "important" gun being destroyed by a pen. In the latter case... I can't say I've ever heard of a Sisters player actually taking a Stormbolter over, say, a flamer or meltagun.

IMO, that's a problem, and symptomatic of a weapon system that's almost totally useless across every possible use case.