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 Bobthehero wrote:
Not as portable or as versatile as either a boltgun or HSVG, I also assume the backpack needed to keep the lascannon firing would be much bigger and much more potent than the HSVG one.

True, but that lascannon is FAR stronger at piercing armour.

Also, meltas, plasmas, gravs and all their combi's are just as portable as bolters, and still stronger.

Melta's have poor range and rate of fire, plasma is unreliable, grav tends to work well on heavily armored targets. HSVG could replace the bolters in the combi mix.

I'd probably give Marines Multi-lasers first over Hot Shot Volley Guns.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Melta's have poor range and rate of fire,

If you are an Astartes, you should not be out of range of a meltagun. If anything, you'll be caving a dude's head in with the stock a lot.

plasma is unreliable,

Not really in the fluff. Plasma is the gak you use to wreck the heretics and level Carnifexes with relative ease.

grav tends to work well on heavily armored targets.

Ew, grav. Grav is relic weaponry and seldom used in the fluff.

HSVG could replace the bolters in the combi mix.

You know, only if we were 6-foot glory hogs in carapace armour. They need their flashlights more than the marines do.

They have hellguns, pretty decent weapon, they don't need an increase in firepower as much as SM's.

 GoonBandito wrote:
I'd probably give Marines Multi-lasers first over Hot Shot Volley Guns.

I wasn't expecting to see you here, C.S. Goto.

the problem is you're looking for the bestest killiest gun for space marines, and that's not the IoM's style. the boltgun, the lasgun, they're the AK-47 of their setting, they're prefered because they're stupidly reliable.

The boltgun has never been described as particularly reliable.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The boltgun has never been described as particularly reliable.

It's never been described as unreliable.

pm713 wrote:
Fear tactics. A lot of what SM's do works because of fear. It's one thing for a man next to you to be hit by a laser and die. It's another for him to explode all over you.

Actually, the effects of a lasbolt on an organic surface is supposed to be pretty visceral. You are basically causing a part of a human body to flash boil, vaporise and explode.



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 Ashiraya wrote:
The boltgun has never been described as particularly reliable.

It depends. IIRC they aren't that reliable in necromunda , but then again the boltguns there are being used by gangsters with minimal military training, and they are probably poor quality, black market ones too.
They are probably more reliable when they are from a reputable manufacturer and in the hands of an experienced soldier who knows how to maintain them. Like a Space Marine supplied by a forge world.


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BrianDavion wrote:
the problem is you're looking for the bestest killiest gun for space marines, and that's not the IoM's style. the boltgun, the lasgun, they're the AK-47 of their setting, they're prefered because they're stupidly reliable.

The lasgun, yes.
Boltguns, not so much. They are considered to be top of the line, rare weapons, at least in necromunda.

Anyway, boltguns are probably more effective against unarmored but tough opponents like orks. I would imagine the lasgun's method of operation would not be too effective against them, due to their body composition and resistance to pain. As such, you need something that can quickly penetrate deep enough and shred their organs to take them down. A bolt round does that exactly. Space Marines appear to be deployed mostly against orks and heretics, so them being armed with boltguns makes sense

Whilst the HSVG is good at piercing armor, it lacks that capability as its just another lasweapon, and really, the armor piercing power is wasted against orks. In game, anyway. Not sure about the fluff. The S / AP system is kind of odd to visualise. I guess it kind of makes sense, as in IRL you have things like FMJ rounds and Hollowpoints, which have different penetrative power but have different effects on the human body, but its still odd to imagine.

Canonically:
You cannot spend your free time writing litanies of hate on laser bolts.
Hotshot bolts penetrate and perforate without distributing damage over a wider area- passing right through and cauterising. They are unsuitable for attacking targets larger than mansized, or mansized targets with above Astartes toughness such as plague marines, obliterators, tyranid warriors, Nobs, ogryns, large mutants, chaos spawn, and myriad other horrors of the 41st millenium.
They also are less efficient against mansized targets who are unarmoured or use less than carapace- Orks, grots, 'gaunts, daemons, cultists, zombies, rogue guardsmen/pdf, Eldar, mutants, beastmen, ratlings, genestealer hybrids.
(Unlike tabletop, Marines aren't typically fighting other marines.)
Orks do not respect laser weapons. The pyyyyyewpewpewpewpah pew of the gatling laser will not cow them. Similarly, many humans prefer auto weapons for the intimidation of hard rounds. Dakka is the preferred acoustic of war.

Speculation:
The Stormtrooper corps being armed with weapons that can defeat marine armour is no accident. After the heresy, hellguns were developed from existing technologies and Stormtrooper cadres were established by the Inquisition, given extensive anti marine training and then deployed against heretical uprisings etc- onhand whenever CSM were revealed to be the cause.
Stormtroopers working in conjunction with assassins have brought down many Chapters, off the books and quietly, the assassins remaining to clean up any loose ends.

They have been training and recruiting in recent years for the big push on Ultramar.

the reason they use boltguns is that the fluff writers at the time of the inception of marines gave them bolters (at the time some also had laspistols as side arms if IRC)

and today the current fluff writers and developers wanted something cool to give to scions and came up with a laser doodad that had to sound cool and effective so they said it can do this and it can do that and didnt think of it in comparison to other weapons already extablished in the fluff nor think of its justification for use or equally jusitifcation for NOT using it by other groups than the small bit of the fluff they were looking at.....


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----

for a completely not interested in further justification or arguement

bolters are better and more effective in everyway so marines have them

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The boltgun has never been described as particularly reliable.

It's never been described as unreliable.

Indeed. It is in the middle.

 =Angel= wrote:
Canonically:
You cannot spend your free time writing litanies of hate on laser bolts.
Hotshot bolts penetrate and perforate without distributing damage over a wider area- passing right through and cauterising. They are unsuitable for attacking targets larger than mansized, or mansized targets with above Astartes toughness such as plague marines, obliterators, tyranid warriors, Nobs, ogryns, large mutants, chaos spawn, and myriad other horrors of the 41st millenium.
They also are less efficient against mansized targets who are unarmoured or use less than carapace- Orks, grots, 'gaunts, daemons, cultists, zombies, rogue guardsmen/pdf, Eldar, mutants, beastmen, ratlings, genestealer hybrids.
(Unlike tabletop, Marines aren't typically fighting other marines.)
Orks do not respect laser weapons. The pyyyyyewpewpewpewpah pew of the gatling laser will not cow them. Similarly, many humans prefer auto weapons for the intimidation of hard rounds. Dakka is the preferred acoustic of war.

Speculation:
The Stormtrooper corps being armed with weapons that can defeat marine armour is no accident. After the heresy, hellguns were developed from existing technologies and Stormtrooper cadres were established by the Inquisition, given extensive anti marine training and then deployed against heretical uprisings etc- onhand whenever CSM were revealed to be the cause.
Stormtroopers working in conjunction with assassins have brought down many Chapters, off the books and quietly, the assassins remaining to clean up any loose ends.

They have been training and recruiting in recent years for the big push on Ultramar.

I agree and disagree with you. I think you're analysis of the weapon is totally off. The HSVG outclasses the boltgun in every way. But I think you are on to something with the employment.

I don't agree that hot shots do not deal massive bodily damage. The rate of fire alone is comparable to an assault cannon, which turns people into hamburger. Even basic, mass produced flashlights can blast a meter diameter hole through concrete walls. It has a pretty messy effect against an unarmored human or xeno. And this is the flashlight turned up to 11. I've never seen a reference in the background to HSVG stuggling with tougher targets, although I have seen the opposite. So if you could cite where you are getting that I could try to see what you are saying.
Where are you getting that HSVG are less effective against rank and file troops? Just because the gun is good at penetrating armor doesn't mean is bad at killing unarmored things. If I shoot you with a sabot round from a 120mm smoothbore and a 5.56, guess which one is more likely to kill you, even though it's designed to open up armor. Lasguns of all varieties work by instantaneously superheating the tissue of the target. If you are a target like an Ork, very fleshy and watery without a lot of armor, it stands to reason the HSVG would be even MORE effective, not less. And I've never heard of one piece of background stating that orks ran away because the noise of a bolter scared them. That sounds like the most unorky situation I can imagine, actually.

However, it makes sense that the IoM wouldn't be keen on too many SM chapters switching to HSVG. Can you imagine if the Astral Claws had carried HSVG instead of boltguns? Maybe not the best example, because if they had won at Badab they would have likely remained loyal, but you get the idea. If SM are issued SM-killing gear in mass, it becomes very hard to take them down. Still, without a law prohibiting it, as a Chapter master I would absolutely be decking my dudes out with HSVG.

It should be noted that game stats do not equal lore capabilities.

 Silverthorne wrote:


I agree and disagree with you. I think you're analysis of the weapon is totally off. The HSVG outclasses the boltgun in every way. But I think you are on to something with the employment.

I don't agree that hot shots do not deal massive bodily damage. The rate of fire alone is comparable to an assault cannon, which turns people into hamburger. Even basic, mass produced flashlights can blast a meter diameter hole through concrete walls. It has a pretty messy effect against an unarmored human or xeno. And this is the flashlight turned up to 11. I've never seen a reference in the background to HSVG stuggling with tougher targets, although I have seen the opposite. So if you could cite where you are getting that I could try to see what you are saying.

Ok, I'm basing this on what I understand hellguns to be.
Lasguns deliver light energy to a targets surface but are bad at dealing with armour ( probably because most armour in-universe is designed to beat LAS). They are the equivalent of dum dum rounds. Hellguns deliver super focused light energy that cuts through a target- the equivalent of high velocity Armour penetrating rounds.

The assault cannon doesn't fire more powerful rounds than a heavy bolter. It doesn't have merely 4 times the rate of fire of a missile launcher. When we see heavy 4, we understand that each of those 4 attacks represent many, many rounds, tearing apart the target. The sheer mass of space lead filling the air is what gives the gun strength 6.
The volley gun is the hellgun equivalent. Individually, each blast is a single hellgun shot, weaker than a bolter round but with better penetration. En masse, those rounds add up to 'bolter strength' shots ingame.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Where are you getting that HSVG are less effective against rank and file troops? Just because the gun is good at penetrating armor doesn't mean is bad at killing unarmored things. If I shoot you with a sabot round from a 120mm smoothbore and a 5.56, guess which one is more likely to kill you, even though it's designed to open up armor. Lasguns of all varieties work by instantaneously superheating the tissue of the target. If you are a target like an Ork, very fleshy and watery without a lot of armor, it stands to reason the HSVG would be even MORE effective, not less. And I've never heard of one piece of background stating that orks ran away because the noise of a bolter scared them. That sounds like the most unorky situation I can imagine, actually.

Consider shooting a deer with a bullet designed to defeat armour plate and it passing right through the leg muscle at high speed.
I don't have a quote at hand for the Ork thing- but I remember reading that's the rationale for why Orks don't use las weapons. The Human bit is from the Inquisitor rulebook- the solid slug weapons tables in the armoury.

Again, what I'm working with here is that HSVG doesn't deliver significantly more energy(per shot) 'to' the target than a regular lasgun. That was what the old hotshot guns used to do back in the day when they were just +1 lasguns (S4)
The shots focus energy on penetration rather than surface level damage.
It would deliver significantly more energy per second to the target because it has a high rate of fire.

I imagine that a lasgun shot burns or blasts an area the size of a golfball into a human chest. I imagine that hellguns bore a needle-thin hole all the way through a the chest of an unarmoured individual in an instant, leaving surrounding tissue relatively un-cooked. (HSVG would pepper the individual with such holes)
Bolter rounds being advanced mass-reactive rockets, detonate within unarmoured targets, shredding them or explode on the surface of armour they fail to penetrate, weakening it.

Another point is that the bolter is rifle form and the HSVG is support weapon form- designed to be fire from the hip and hose down targets.
The reason SM don't all take heavy bolters is so that other squadmates can cover the SAW guy with their rifles. So the real comparison is between the HSVG and
Plasmaguns which threaten vehicles
Meltaguns which are for killing vehicles
Flamers which kill more infantry
grav guns which are effective aginst vehicles and terminators
missile launchers which have range and AV power
plasmacannons which outperform HSVG in most situations and have AV power
Grav cannons which again, outperform HSVG in lost of circumstances.

And between the bolter and hellgun.

 Silverthorne wrote:
However, it makes sense that the IoM wouldn't be keen on too many SM chapters switching to HSVG. Can you imagine if the Astral Claws had carried HSVG instead of boltguns? Maybe not the best example, because if they had won at Badab they would have likely remained loyal, but you get the idea. If SM are issued SM-killing gear in mass, it becomes very hard to take them down.

This is really the best reason. The HSVG is essentially a specialist man portable weapon for killing armored elites. The Admech don't use it, meaning they likely think they've a better solution (involving radiation, no doubt) and there's no reason that Astartes would be equipped with it considering their regular enemies and the tools they have already.
The Inquisition/Tempestus arm of the Munitorum monopolising the hell out of hellguns ( ) makes complete sense from a background perspective, especially considering Inquisitors tend to use power armour themselves.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Still, without a law prohibiting it, as a Chapter master I would absolutely be decking my dudes out with HSVG.

And you'd be within your rights to do so, assuming you found some store of them in your travels.
However, the Admech arent obliged to supply you with high energy lasers any more than they are obliged to supply you with Death Strike ICB(vortex)M launchers and asking might earn you the same Inquisitorial attention as looting fallen Tempestus allies.

/IMHO

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Fear tactics. A lot of what SM's do works because of fear. It's one thing for a man next to you to be hit by a laser and die. It's another for him to explode all over you.

Actually, the effects of a lasbolt on an organic surface is supposed to be pretty visceral. You are basically causing a part of a human body to flash boil, vaporise and explode.

Is the part the same size as the entire torso?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The boltgun has never been described as particularly reliable.

It's never been described as unreliable.

Indeed. It is in the middle.

Reliable. Requires a well trained user to be so however.ie a space marine.

Full disclosure: I ran a narrative campaign that never finished, combining killteam and combat patrol elements.
An Iron warriors killteam were to sneak past the patrols of a hive's wall and infect the water treatment facilities with obliterator virus.
They triggered a patrol and Admech (counts as stormtroopers ) swung by and rappelled down from rapid response craft ( counts as valkyries)

After a shootout resulted in victory, the first thing my friend's Iron Warriors did was loot the hellguns.


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 jhe90 wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The boltgun has never been described as particularly reliable.

It's never been described as unreliable.

Indeed. It is in the middle.

Reliable. Requires a well trained user to be so however.ie a space marine.

A lot of this 'reliability' comes from Necromunda where you'd have weapons in the hand of violent gangs- played at the scale where reliability became an issue.
The weapons themselves were not the best examples of their craft in the first place, having been produced in some shop on necromunda itself and finding its way to the underhive either by being a reject or passing through many hands.
Then you had violent nut jobs with pointed metal teeth not maintaining them.
Bolter weapons in this environment were unreliable and prone to jam but powerful enough to take the risk. Even handguns were somewhat unreliable. Lasguns however were very reliable- requiring as they do almost no maintenance to keep running.

A marine knows how to strip and clean his bolter- and he has serfs and tech adepts to repair any damage.
A hive ganger has none of these things, and may have difficulty finding ammo for it!

 Ashiraya wrote:
It should be noted that game stats do not equal lore capabilities.

Sure. But you have to take that conceit pretty dang far to get to a place where a gun that on the table top is the same strength and range, with double the penetrating quality and rate of fire is not better. Otherwise you could say that grot blasters are actually better than lance batteries, it's just not reflected well on the table top.


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pm713 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Fear tactics. A lot of what SM's do works because of fear. It's one thing for a man next to you to be hit by a laser and die. It's another for him to explode all over you.

Actually, the effects of a lasbolt on an organic surface is supposed to be pretty visceral. You are basically causing a part of a human body to flash boil, vaporise and explode.

Is the part the same size as the entire torso?

In gaunt's ghosts a regular lasgun blows a hole through a concrete wall big enough to step through. So yeah. Entire torso. Head flying, you name it.

Shoot said oh-so-dangerous HSVG two times, point blank, into your average IG Major.

He will survive.

Game mechanics yay!

@ Angel

The problem with the deer analogy is rate of fire. The ROF on this gun is insane, and I'm no corpsman, but I have a hard time believing someone nailed 4 times by green tips is more likely to survive than someone hit by regular ball once. And as you point out, that's a crude equivalence. In all likelyhood, the HSVG has a ROF considerably higher than 4x a bolter.

My impression of Hellguns in general and HSVG in particular isn't that the beam is more focused, it is that more power is being dumped into each shot, which scales up penetrating power exponentially and strength only marginally. It would be cool if they did an exploded diagram in the next Tempestus book explaining the tech, but that seems unlikely. A long las seems to work with more focused light, but the MT stuff just seems to throw more power downrange.

I don't really buy the support weapon team idea from what I've seen of real world militaries. If it was practical to outfit every rifleman with a LMG and 800 rounds of ammo without weighing him down and degrading his mobility, we would. (Except for grenadiers, marksmen, engineers, etc who have specialist weapons). SEAL Platoons in Vietnam followed this approach-- every guy except the corpsman and the LT pretty much carried a stoner unless they had some reason to carry something else. So in the case of SM and the HSVG-- they wouldn't have a tactical reason to stick with the bolter. They can easily manage the additional weight of the HSVG. If we had examples of SM firing into CC where other SM are engaged, expecting the PA to save them, then we might have a good tactical reason for them not to lug around HSVG, but as it is, I don't see one.
Really SM and MT both should all carry HSVG if the table top mechanics are any way grounded in reality. Both the standard hellgun and the boltgun are outclassed. Specialist weapons could still be issued, especially to deal with armor or monstrous creatures. Something like 7 SM w/ HSVG, 2 SM w/ Melta, SG with power fist.
Obviously this is all just do to GW not having totally reconciled everything within their own background, which I totally understand given the scale of that. Still, LRRP SM with HSVG instead of bolters is a kickass idea.


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 Ashiraya wrote:
Shoot said oh-so-dangerous HSVG two times, point blank, into your average IG Major.

He will survive.

Game mechanics yay!

Um, no.

8 S4 AP 3 shots is enough to kill an IG major.

however, 4 St 4 AP 5 shots from your beloved boltgun won't reliably put him down, especially if he has upgraded to carapace.

Great job, you played yourself.

Isn't the damage from a lasgun comparable to a .50 round? Can a .50 round obliterate a torso? I suppose it is possible; there is a lot of liquid to flash boil, and I would imagine the amount of steam being generated would have an...unfortunate effect.

 Silverthorne wrote:
@ Angel

The problem with the deer analogy is rate of fire. The ROF on this gun is insane, and I'm no corpsman, but I have a hard time believing someone nailed 4 times by green tips is more likely to survive than someone hit by regular ball once. And as you point out, that's a crude equivalence. In all likelyhood, the HSVG has a ROF considerably higher than 4x a bolter.

My impression of Hellguns in general and HSVG in particular isn't that the beam is more focused, it is that more power is being dumped into each shot, which scales up penetrating power exponentially and strength only marginally. It would be cool if they did an exploded diagram in the next Tempestus book explaining the tech, but that seems unlikely. A long las seems to work with more focused light, but the MT stuff just seems to throw more power downrange.

I don't really buy the support weapon team idea from what I've seen of real world militaries. If it was practical to outfit every rifleman with a LMG and 800 rounds of ammo without weighing him down and degrading his mobility, we would. (Except for grenadiers, marksmen, engineers, etc who have specialist weapons). SEAL Platoons in Vietnam followed this approach-- every guy except the corpsman and the LT pretty much carried a stoner unless they had some reason to carry something else. So in the case of SM and the HSVG-- they wouldn't have a tactical reason to stick with the bolter. They can easily manage the additional weight of the HSVG. If we had examples of SM firing into CC where other SM are engaged, expecting the PA to save them, then we might have a good tactical reason for them not to lug around HSVG, but as it is, I don't see one.
Really SM and MT both should all carry HSVG if the table top mechanics are any way grounded in reality. Both the standard hellgun and the boltgun are outclassed. Specialist weapons could still be issued, especially to deal with armor or monstrous creatures. Something like 7 SM w/ HSVG, 2 SM w/ Melta, SG with power fist.
Obviously this is all just do to GW not having totally reconciled everything within their own background, which I totally understand given the scale of that. Still, LRRP SM with HSVG instead of bolters is a kickass idea.


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 Ashiraya wrote:
Shoot said oh-so-dangerous HSVG two times, point blank, into your average IG Major.

He will survive.

Game mechanics yay!

Um, no.

8 S4 AP 3 shots is enough to kill an IG major.

however, 4 St 4 AP 5 shots from your beloved boltgun won't reliably put him down, especially if he has upgraded to carapace.

Great job, you played yourself.

Knowing a Vietnam Era SEAL I can tell you that they did not all carry Stoners, they carried what worked for them most of the time and that often wasnt the Stoner as it was over complicated. Plus you know havign everyone weighed down with a SAW is a bad idea in the Jungle when you need to move quickly on long patrols.


And you are failing to take into account Shields the IG Major would have on the TT.

Shields? Like what, a refractor field or something? Because that would stop a bolt round just as well as a HSVG round.

Yes-- I said not all SEALs carried stoners. Hell, they occasionally carried crossbows and wore blue jeans. Many carried cut down M-60s as well. My point was that if you are conducting an assault and only expect to be out a few hours, and have your mobility provided for you, there isn't much reason to take a rifle over an LMG. Or any reason, really. Compare the heavy weapon density in a SEAL platoon (especially ST 2, late war) to a regular platoon of legs. A detachment of 8-10 SEALs frequently had as many MMG and LMGs as an entire platoon of regular grunts. I'm sure if you ask your friend he can confirm this. And they didn't carry that much iron for their health-- if mobility and ammo aren't an issue (and for SM carrying a HSVG they wouldn't be) then you want a MG. The MG is a casualty producing weapon-- the rifles are just to keep the MG protected.

Silverthorne wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
It should be noted that game stats do not equal lore capabilities.

Sure. But you have to take that conceit pretty dang far to get to a place where a gun that on the table top is the same strength and range, with double the penetrating quality and rate of fire is not better. Otherwise you could say that grot blasters are actually better than lance batteries, it's just not reflected well on the table top.

Except there's no canon precedent for it. We know roughly the capabilities of grot blastas as worn down scrap pistols - possible air rifle strength. Certainly not lance battery equivalents.

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pm713 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Fear tactics. A lot of what SM's do works because of fear. It's one thing for a man next to you to be hit by a laser and die. It's another for him to explode all over you.

Actually, the effects of a lasbolt on an organic surface is supposed to be pretty visceral. You are basically causing a part of a human body to flash boil, vaporise and explode.

Is the part the same size as the entire torso?

In gaunt's ghosts a regular lasgun blows a hole through a concrete wall big enough to step through. So yeah. Entire torso. Head flying, you name it.

Could I see a quote from that? I have the books, but I don't recall seeing a single shot do that.
Overloading the magazine and destroying it, yes, but that's not quite shooting, is it?

And I only need to point to the myriads of data about bolters to prove how devastating bolters are, and always have been.






All a few quotes I could find with minimal effort.

Silverthorne wrote:@ Angel

The problem with the deer analogy is rate of fire. The ROF on this gun is insane, and I'm no corpsman, but I have a hard time believing someone nailed 4 times by green tips is more likely to survive than someone hit by regular ball once. And as you point out, that's a crude equivalence. In all likelyhood, the HSVG has a ROF considerably higher than 4x a bolter.

Evidence? Also, the green tips at a fast rate might do better than the single ball, but balls firing at the same rate as green tips? Now that's something.

My impression of Hellguns in general and HSVG in particular isn't that the beam is more focused, it is that more power is being dumped into each shot, which scales up penetrating power exponentially and strength only marginally. It would be cool if they did an exploded diagram in the next Tempestus book explaining the tech, but that seems unlikely. A long las seems to work with more focused light, but the MT stuff just seems to throw more power downrange.

I don't really buy the support weapon team idea from what I've seen of real world militaries. If it was practical to outfit every rifleman with a LMG and 800 rounds of ammo without weighing him down and degrading his mobility, we would. (Except for grenadiers, marksmen, engineers, etc who have specialist weapons). SEAL Platoons in Vietnam followed this approach-- every guy except the corpsman and the LT pretty much carried a stoner unless they had some reason to carry something else. So in the case of SM and the HSVG-- they wouldn't have a tactical reason to stick with the bolter. They can easily manage the additional weight of the HSVG. If we had examples of SM firing into CC where other SM are engaged, expecting the PA to save them, then we might have a good tactical reason for them not to lug around HSVG, but as it is, I don't see one.
Really SM and MT both should all carry HSVG if the table top mechanics are any way grounded in reality. Both the standard hellgun and the boltgun are outclassed. Specialist weapons could still be issued, especially to deal with armor or monstrous creatures. Something like 7 SM w/ HSVG, 2 SM w/ Melta, SG with power fist.
Obviously this is all just do to GW not having totally reconciled everything within their own background, which I totally understand given the scale of that. Still, LRRP SM with HSVG instead of bolters is a kickass idea.

Bolters are the Astartes thing. It's as iconic as their armour, and just as fearsome to their dedicated targets. Bolters are just as efficient tactically, with a variety of different modifications that can be made to the weapon and the economical strengths it has against the Space Marines' desired targets.

And of course, we know the TT mechanics are not grounded in reality.

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 Ashiraya wrote:
Shoot said oh-so-dangerous HSVG two times, point blank, into your average IG Major.

He will survive.

Game mechanics yay!

Um, no.

8 S4 AP 3 shots is enough to kill an IG major.

however, 4 St 4 AP 5 shots from your beloved boltgun won't reliably put him down, especially if he has upgraded to carapace.

Great job, you played yourself.

Then I pull out FFG's Deathwatch, and show how a single bolter round severely wounds a Guard Senior Officer (Majors, Generals, etc)

Bolters can fire either 1, 2 or 4 shots. In this, I'll use the single shot, and disregard the bonuses I again from not going semi/full auto.
That shot does 2d10+5 Explosive Damage, with the Tearing trait and AP5. Using a bell curve, I'd roll an 11 most of the time, and I'll not go into Tearing (lets me roll an extra dice and discard the lowest, which should bring my average up). I cause 16 HP of damage, and 5 points of my target's armour can be ignored.
Assuming this Guard guy has carapace, and that the marine hits him in that carapace, the AV6 carapace will only help remove a single point from my damage output, and the officer's Toughness Bonus of 4 would remove another 4 points of damage. Therefore, I instead do 11 damage to this guy.
A normal guardsman would be outright killed by this, with only 10 HP. However, officers are made of stronger stuff - they have 16(?) HP.
He lives, but that's assuming a single unaimed shot. Mow thing about an aimed shot, or with perks, or even a single other round - that officer is pulped, even in carapace, which he doesn't get by default.

Game mechanics don't always make sense, but the FFG ones are of a far better scale than the tabletop.

Didn't there used to be the whole "Holy Bolter" thing where a SM's bolter had some religious significance. I know the weapon is revered as part of a trinity by the SoB but I'm pretty sure the SM had something similar.

I believe that is the entire point of Ashiraya's argument, that with a Shield the HSVG is just as useless as the Boltgun.

Your argument wasn't that they carried them for specific missions, but that they carried them. Even still on a short fast assault, you want your guys to be fast, having alot oh heavy weapons is going to prevent you from striking as quickly as you want. So for specific missions perhaps they would have more, most of what I have heard is three per patrol since SEALs were mostly doing LRRP and Secret Squirrel stuff, not heavy assaults. Though there was a time and a place.

The MG, while one of the Main killing methods, is not just there for killing its for suppression. Just as the Riflemen is not just there to protect the MG, but to maneuver and eliminate as the MG keeps the enemy pinned. So Nam Seals with their lets say 3 MGs for this LRRP would have more power if they needed to get hot, but alot more power for keeping themselves covered to with draw or maneuver. Its never as simple as you think. Today we have the M27 IAR for the Marines, and their Special Troops aren't all loaded out with them and the biggest weapons, they are there to support the primary MG, like the Stoner supported the M60. Some goes for the Russians and the RPK, it supports the PKM. If there isnt the bigger MG, its there to support the Squad.

@smudge

So do you claim that one on one, against say, a CSM, that a bolter is just as good, or in fact, superior to a HSVG? Yes or No.

Do you claim that a weapon which fires a limited store of hand-made ammo is as tactically viable as a weapon that never needs to have it's ammo replenished? Yes or No

What is your evidence that the Bolter is better at killing elite troops than a HSVG? You state examples of bolters doing well, but none comparing the two directly. These examples likely do not exist, as the HSVG is not nearly as established a weapon in the lore as the Bolter. So we have to compare them on TT stats. And there the Bolter is wildly outclassed by the HSVG. While I can understand a marginal difference in power being reflective of just a poor transition from lore to table, this is a shellacking, as I am sure you know.

The facts are straightforward. On one hand, you have a lightweight support weapon, easily portable by a marine, that effortlessly penetrates the armor of CSM, a very common marine target, as well as the armor of Nid Warriors, Ard Boys, Aspect Warriors, Tau crisis and FW units, etc etc etc, never needs to be reloaded, and can fire at a rate comparable to miniguns,

On the other hand, you have an automatic .75 cal rocket launcher using a hybrid gyro-jet type ordnance. It feeds from a 20 to 30 round magazine, has a much lower rater of fire, dramatically worse penetrating qualities unless potentially user-lethal vengeance shells are chambered, an enormous logistical tail requiring more than 1 man-week of labor to produce a single, non-specialist bolt, and a radically worse rate of fire.

And you're trying to sell option 2 as the way to go. Aside from being a logistical nightmare, having worse suppressive qualities and virtually nill penetrative qualities against enemy elites, being entirely outclassed in rate of fire, and when chambered so as to match the HSVG's penetrating ability, routinely kills it's operator. That sounds a lot like an emotional decision and not a rational one.


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@ Victor-- LRRPs were (and still are) an unusual mission for SEALs. That's more Army territory. SEALs were (and still are) very much about the assault. Navy SPECOPS have always been tailored to direct action, unlike the ODAs. SEALs in Vietnam operated mainly in the South on missions of attrition-- these were set piece gunfights designed to bag huge numbers of VC and were straight up, top to bottom assaults. SEALs rarely did LRRP in Vietnam because that's not their specialty, and they didn't have anyone organizationally to pass off LRRP data to. Plus, they were almost entirely specced for counterinsurgency, and LRRP isn't a big player in that type of mission.
I'm sure that you are knowledgeable enough to be aware that statistically MGs stack far more bodies than rifles in a gunfight. Combined with the suppressive effect, and the way that it causes the enemy to think that they've run into a much larger force (common phenomenon in Vietnam when ST and Charlie met up) if you are capable of wielding a MG without sacrificing any mobility (and I don't think it is unreasonable at all to assume an 8 ft astartes could do so with a puny MT HSVG) then there isn't any good reason not to. Especially if you take ammo concerns out of the picture, which the HSVG does.

As for the shield argument-- it's false. If you can block 1/3 of all my shots, then the HSVG is still twice as good as a bolter, since it is putting out twice as many shots in the same range band. He made a worse case scenario for the HSVG and still outperforms the bolter in wounds inflicted by at least 2:1.

 Silverthorne wrote:
@smudge

So do you claim that one on one, against say, a CSM, that a bolter is just as good, or in fact, superior to a HSVG? Yes or No.

I've never made that claim? I have no idea where you pulled that from.

Do you claim that a weapon which fires a limited store of hand-made ammo is as tactically viable as a weapon that never needs to have it's ammo replenished? Yes or No

Yes I do. The hand made ammo is of a typically higher quality shot per shot, and can be adjusted to a variety of different situations. The typical engagement of an Astartes is so fast and rapid that the replenishing ammo is useless, as the marine only needs x amount of rounds. They don't fight protracted battles - they strike hard and fast, regroup on an ammo point, and do it again. No need for replenishing ammo that eventually fuses the gun's cables together.

What is your evidence that the Bolter is better at killing elite troops than a HSVG? You state examples of bolters doing well, but none comparing the two directly. These examples likely do not exist, as the HSVG is not nearly as established a weapon in the lore as the Bolter. So we have to compare them on TT stats. And there the Bolter is wildly outclassed by the HSVG. While I can understand a marginal difference in power being reflective of just a poor transition from lore to table, this is a shellacking, as I am sure you know.

You just proved the point. HSVG are not established in the lore like the bolter is - so GW having Space Marines swap out all their bolters for HSVG is a pretty radical move, not to mention a rather stupid one.
TT stats are biased, as we could easily infer that HSVG only have such a profile to make them appealing to take, a la power creep. Indeed, they are a Salvo weapon - a type that did not exist prior to 6th. Not to mention that you're comparing an infantry rifle to a squad special weapon.
And FFG's stats portray the bolter in a far more favourable light than their mediocre tabletop equivalents.

The facts are straightforward. On one hand, you have a lightweight support weapon, easily portable by a marine, that effortlessly penetrates the armor of CSM, a very common marine target, as well as the armor of Nid Warriors, Ard Boys, Aspect Warriors, Tau crisis and FW units, etc etc etc, never needs to be reloaded, and can fire at a rate comparable to miniguns.

I'm going to need sources on the weight of the gun, and that fire rate.
Most of those armour types are then dealt with by the special weapons of the Space Marines, leaving the infantry to be cut down by propelled grenades. And I already addressed the issue on reloading.
Another issue is the compartmentalisation of IoM forces. By giving Marines weapons that kill other Marines and never need supplying as an ammo source, you create a huge issue if those Marines go rogue. At least with bolters, they can be starved out of resources and forced to scavenge.

On the other hand, you have an automatic .75 cal rocket launcher using a hybrid gyro-jet type ordnance. It feeds from a 20 to 30 round magazine, has a much lower rater of fire, dramatically worse penetrating qualities unless potentially user-lethal vengeance shells are chambered, an enormous logistical tail requiring more than 1 man-week of labor to produce a single, non-specialist bolt, and a radically worse rate of fire.

Again, you're running off of TT stats for the RoF. Could I see a fluff source of the RoF?
Worrying about the labour to produce a bolt shell is unnecessary when you have a Forge World dedicated to pumping them out. And marines make their shots count - no need for ten shots when one strong one will do the trick. And the armour penetrating is perfectly capable when you're going up against hordes of lightly armoured foes and traitor guard forces - the vast majority of SM targets.

And you're trying to sell option 2 as the way to go. Aside from being a logistical nightmare, having worse suppressive qualities and virtually nill penetrative qualities against enemy elites, being entirely outclassed in rate of fire, and when chambered so as to match the HSVG's penetrating ability, routinely kills it's operator. That sounds a lot like an emotional decision and not a rational one.

You're missing my points.
1) Issue of Renegade Astartes
2) Dedicated support from Forge Worlds
3) Tradition - an element the IoM is based on
4) Logistics are actually very well handled with SM, seeing as the Departmento Munitorum don't control them as such.
5) I still want that fluff source of RoF.
6) The HSVG also kills it's operator? Only a marine is more likely to survive the overheat, due to his armour and innate toughness.
7) Power armour can withstand a hell of a lot. Given that a Battle Cannon has the same AP as your HSVG, this can stand counter to it carving through marines.
I'll run some tests on a FFG bolter on a CSM vs a hellgun on a CSM later, if that helps you.


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 MarsNZ wrote:
Didn't there used to be the whole "Holy Bolter" thing where a SM's bolter had some religious significance. I know the weapon is revered as part of a trinity by the SoB but I'm pretty sure the SM had something similar.

More than likely. They are holy instruments of the Emperor's divine wrath, and have been since their inception, IIRC.