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After reviewing the Death Company I am curious is there any reason at all that you should equip them with bolt pistols over bolters? I am trying to figure out what to equip them with since starting to play 40k 8th edition. I know I want to give them power weapons since they only cost 5pts each.

The only challenge I have had is what to equip them with for their ranged weapon. For some reason it just looks/feels wrong to have a model dedicated to close combat running around with a bolter. Yet, having a bolt pistol will likely force you to shoot at the unit you want to assault and will make the charge more than 9". In addition, the Death Company are so deadly in combat you will likely never need to shoot a pistol into close combat since that unit will already be dead by the next shooting phase.

Equipping the Death Company with bolter gives so many advantages and allows you to rapid fire and shoot at diffrent targets than you want to charge. I just can't see any reason not to equip them over the bolt pistol. Can anyone come up with a reason why I should take a bolt pistol over the bolter?

In previous ediditions have the DC been able to take a close combat weapon and a bolter? It just looks and feels wrong to do this, however the advantages are massive. I just don't want to build them all this way and then have GW likely change it in the near future.

Well, the bolt pistol can shoot in melee while the boltgun can't.

 Melissia wrote:
Well, the bolt pistol can shoot in melee while the boltgun can't.

Yea but how often will that ever happen considering the DC are so deadly in combat? However, with jump packs they can leave combat and then rapid fire into a unit within 12".

When I charge with my 10man DC unit I am usually getting 40 strength 5 hits, re-rolling failed hits, that have a -3 save modifier. Nothing has survived that yet where I would need to shoot into combat my following turn.

Where would you need boltguns either, for that matter, if they're so superbly killy? I'm just saying the main benefit of using a pistol here.

Well the thought is you could target a unit 24" away before charging. Then models couldn't be pulled to make you have a longer charge. This would be great to target things such as IG heavy squads behind the bubble wrap squads.

In addition, if you did need to fly out of a combat you would get double shots rapid firing.

DC aren't that dangerous in combat against many targets. They are ideally anti-horde. I vote pistol, because shooting yourself out of assault sucks.

You should probably just not take either of those and give them a chainsword along with the power weapon, as their main goal is hordes, the chainsword will give you more attacks. Especially against orks, as the extra attacks will kill another 3-4 boys if any of them remain from the first 40 attacks.

Or hormagaunts. Or termagants. Or conscripts.

Well it's certainly a valid option. It's not like they're going to be spectacular in shooting anyway, so further specializing them in to melee isnt' gonna make you lose anything.