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Ok, I'm going to field this, and I want to see if there is something I'm forgetting

Character is a beastwoman ungor (pretty much just ogrin sized and has horns as opposed to a minotaur) with custom power armor in the employ of a Rogue trader dynasty

Rogue Trader takes place in the M40.800s, so current issues with beastmen on ships would not apply.

Does a Volkite weapon use a standard power pack as ammunition? Could not find canon answer to this.

Can a storm shield also be a boarding shield? (since a boarding shield seems to work more like a pavise)

Why DOES a bolter have recoil? Or are depictions of it having such just 'did not do the research'?

Why DOES a bolter have recoil? Or are depictions of it having such just 'did not do the research'?

I don't know if it's in the fluff since the description of bolter rounds is a bit fantastical in terms of what they can do, but a pure rocket propelled round wouldn't have as much punch close up as the round needs time to accelerate. So I'm guessing there's an initial charge like a conventional bullet and the rocket kicks in afterwards to further accelerate it.

That would be why there's recoil.

 ScarletRose wrote:


I don't know if it's in the fluff since the description of bolter rounds is a bit fantastical in terms of what they can do, but a pure rocket propelled round wouldn't have as much punch close up as the round needs time to accelerate. So I'm guessing there's an initial charge like a conventional bullet and the rocket kicks in afterwards to further accelerate it.

That would be why there's recoil.

According to canon cross sections it's a solid rocket propellant all the way down, but it supposedly has a recoil so powerful that regular humans can't handle them. Unless they can. So, I think we can chalk that one up to 'did not do the research'.

No, I've read from a GW source of a black market seller testing out an astartes bolt pistol, and the recoil ripping his arm off and killing him, or something like that. Keep in mind Astartes use bigger boltguns than humans do.

Also how would there be no problems for beastmen in M40????
And she should not be an Ungor as she'd be killed on contact most likely. If she was a Halfturn/ mutant, it'd make sense.
But there's would still be many problems for her, 99% of the places she goes, even if it was M32.

Unless there's something about Rogue Traders and mutants that I'm missing

Bolt shells were caseless self-propelled rockets waaaaay back in the original Rogue Trader fluff. They have been two-stage projectiles since the middle of Rogue Trader and ever since though. There is a hefty kicker charge that gets the bolt supersonic before it leaves the barrel, when the sustainer rocket kicks in and keeps the shell supersonic for as long as possible.

Stalker pattern silenced shells are the only rocket-only version in current use and stay sub-sonic at all times.


Volkite wepons are definitely ray guns so they should use a power pack of some sort but they also seem to share some features with Melta weapons so there is the possibility that they also have/consume some sort of gas or liquid medium to produce the rays too so probably not a standard lasgun pack.

123ply wrote:
Also how would there be no problems for beastmen in M40????
And she should not be an Ungor as she'd be killed on contact most likely. If she was a Halfturn/ mutant, it'd make sense.
But there's would still be many problems for her, 99% of the places she goes, even if it was M32.

Unless there's something about Rogue Traders and mutants that I'm missing

Beastmen were officially considered a stable abhumans strain, not mutants. This is from the fluff section of the 6th/7th rule books. It was only at the very end of the millennium did beastmen become heavily sanctioned in their abhuman status (e.g. forbidden to be transported between worlds).

Basically the subtext is they are having their official status as abhuman withdrawn, and are to be reclassified as deviant mutants.

123ply wrote:
No, I've read from a GW source of a black market seller testing out an astartes bolt pistol, and the recoil ripping his arm off and killing him, or something like that. Keep in mind Astartes use bigger boltguns than humans do.

Also how would there be no problems for beastmen in M40????
And she should not be an Ungor as she'd be killed on contact most likely. If she was a Halfturn/ mutant, it'd make sense.
But there's would still be many problems for her, 99% of the places she goes, even if it was M32.

Unless there's something about Rogue Traders and mutants that I'm missing

Yeah, in older IG codecies, it's made clear that beastmen are abhumans, not mutants, though at the present in 40k it's a little cloudier.

The reason that I'm questioning the recoil is it makes no sense. if the weapon functions as GW describes it (basically a rocket gun) it would have very small amounts of recoil. Just to knock you down it would have to be something on the order of the diameter if the main gun off a KV2, to give you an idea of how absurd this is. Also, 'civilian' bolters are only 15 caliber smaller. If 75 tears your limbs off, than 60 is not going to be safe either.

Worse, just to scramble gak further, some space marines use the same bolter caliber as civilians (Tigris Pattern), but get the same damage as if the bolter was a full size astartes bolter!

GW, FFS WRITE A SETTING BIBLE!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Bolt shells were caseless self-propelled rockets waaaaay back in the original Rogue Trader fluff. They have been two-stage projectiles since the middle of Rogue Trader and ever since though.

A bolt round, as of 3rd edition (pg 60) consisted of: outer casing, propellant base, main charge, mass reactive detonator cap, depleted deuterium core, diamantine tip. I refer you to FFG's work, the current Codex Space Marines (and most previous ones).

And stalker bolt shells use compressed gas, not rocket propellant at all.