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 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
That’s the stuff I’m talking about, orks regularly tank bolter rounds center of mass, I’m convinced that the orks in space marine were captured guardsmen painted green.

It´s more likely the armoury equipped the SM with pea shooters instead of bolters. Gonna aim for the eyes then to make ´em squint.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Stux wrote:

 Flinty wrote:


This kind of talk tends to lead back around to, why do they not all have multi-lasers powered from the armour's fusion plant

Or at least a backup sidearm / digital weapon powered in that way...

But I guess the answer to these things is ultimately "that's not what they have the STCs for"

Traditioooooooon, Tradition!

The Bolter is Holy. They use Bolters, because that’s how The Emperor equipped them. And it’s what the Codex Astartes requires.

Never mind the rush bodge job of the Astartes project. It’s tradition now.

What day and night must kill those fething xenos
Crack apart their torsos, praise the holy god lord
And what has the might, as fist of the chapter
To blast apart heretics
The bolteeeeer, the bolter, tradtion
The bolteeeeeer, the bolter, tradition!

What we use this way to make a proper corpse,
A quiet corpse, a strewn-up corpse?
What we raise with family and friends at home,
So Chaplain's free to read the holy books?

The Bolteeeer, the Bolter! Tradition!
The Bolteeeer, the Bolter! Tradition!

Excellent, gentlemen! Excellent!

 EllaCote wrote:
How do bolters work 40k?

During which edition? I can remember I think in 2nd they were described as caseless ammunition, making all those belt fed empties on Calgar, Guilliman, etc. fairly entertaining.

Breton wrote:

 EllaCote wrote:
How do bolters work 40k?

During which edition? I can remember I think in 2nd they were described as caseless ammunition, making all those belt fed empties on Calgar, Guilliman, etc. fairly entertaining.

I recall them being described as caseless, but empty shells ejecting out and scattered around the minis and artwork always put lie to that.

 catbarf wrote:
and assault rifles with an effective range of about 25 yards.

More like assault rifles where the bullets just magically disappear after 25 yards.
If it were just a drop off in accuracy (like in Phoenix Point) it would make a little more sense.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
and assault rifles with an effective range of about 25 yards.

More like assault rifles where the bullets just magically disappear after 25 yards.
If it were just a drop off in accuracy (like in Phoenix Point) it would make a little more sense.

That is expanded on in the original Rogue Trader book. The range restriction itself was there as an abstraction for effective shooting to simply make it more interesting on the tabletop as all weapons couldn't shoot everywhere, but Rick provided an optional rule for those who found the unrealistic shortening grating: as the weapons normally had Short and Long ranges, you could just add Extreme to the range bands as well. This had no upper limit, but only ever hit on a six to begin with.

Other games have also used the "standard range is infinite" to varying degrees of success. I recall that the now long gone game AT-43 had some really cool rules for things like this (also you could actually do things like electronic counter-measures and communications jamming, which was pretty neat!)

I liked the old Stargrunt method in that weapon ranges were effectively infinite, but range bands were set but the quality of the troops. A green conscript rifleman was using 4” range bands, while an elite sniper had a 24” short range, iirc.

Horizon Wars has quite a nice method as well where you need to roll over the range to hit, so units with more firepower dice can be effective to longer ranges


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:

Breton wrote:

 EllaCote wrote:
How do bolters work 40k?

During which edition? I can remember I think in 2nd they were described as caseless ammunition, making all those belt fed empties on Calgar, Guilliman, etc. fairly entertaining.

I recall them being described as caseless, but empty shells ejecting out and scattered around the minis and artwork always put lie to that.

Can you remember where the careless bolted thing comes from? I have flicked through the most obvious places in Rogue Trader, Compilation, 2nd Ed wargear and codex imperialis, images in the spoiler tags below.



By comparison, the RT auto gun entry states


And by the 3rd edition rule book,’the technical readout for the bolter is clearly showing cases