Deathwatch

[jimbobabob]

yeah they got a kicking and for once really needed their medic lol. Not sure whats happening with the end of that fight since after withdrawing to the ship, the Inquisitor aka squishy, is deciding if she should just declare Exterminatous on the planet and have it cracked into pieces or get reinforcements and go in and clear the complex.

If she decides to just simply nuke the planet then that mission will be over and we'll start a new one next time. Ill let you know in the next couple of days when i get a descion of her,

[Nick]

Well i'll be there for the next session, but not sure about the 18th as i think that's the last week of the year for us and we normally just muck about and play board games and stuff. Will apologise again for not being there, been ultra busy at work for the last 5 weeks and it's starting to take its toll a little bit XD

[Zeewulf]

We can't let a facility fall to the enemy ....... NOOOOOOO !!!!!

[jimbobabob]

Well the whole 2 xenos races with one of them potentially being a new unknown it kind of makes it kind of a good tactical choice :-p

[Nick]

Got a few questions. First of all, is hit location used when we shoot at stuff, and would there be any benefit to using called shots? For example, going for headshots or trying to cripple something nasty. Secondly, when i heal someone who has critical damage, am i allowed to add my 1D5 bonus healing? I assumed no, but i don't know for sure. And finally, i also wanted to know what the deal is with solo mode and squad mode abilities, as i can't see anywhere that says they take a full round to use. I assumed they were free actions declared at the start of a turn, which would make sense. Having them take a full round off you i think makes them pretty useless. I also looked into the Fanatasy Flight Games Deathwatch forums, specifically the Living Errata section, and it looks like i'm far from the only one who thinks that the weapons seem very unbalanced, specifically Plasma and Melta. Bearing in mind that a Plasma Gun is supposed to go through Terminator armour and light vehicles, having it deal less damage per shot, with a lower fire rate than a standard Bolter seems a little odd. Maximal setting is not great, as you can't fire for a turn. Better off just spending the 20 points on special ammo for a Bolter. Seems a lot of people use house rules for a lot of the guns.

[jimbobabob]

Against most random run of the mill bad guys i dont bother with hit locations too much since i dont give them critical hits, they just die when at zero wounds, the main problem I've had so far with the bad guys i do use critical results on is that they dont confirm with the usual hit tables due to extra limbs or body shape lol. It's a very useful skill if you spot weak points on a target or want to take it alive and with the move in the next few adventures towards more humanoid bad guys it will probably see more use unless you're still using your storm bolter to spray :-p.

Technically you can only heal one point of critical damage how ever we tend to just have a successful heal put them back on zero wounds but some critical effects will still be in force, eg if your leg was blown off, its still gone .

Squad and solo mode abilities all have their own time taken to use, some are free actions, some require a half or more actions.

Plasma guns are powerful however theres no specific mention that they specifically go through terminator armour, infact 40k literature is full of stories of terminators surviving plasma and even being used as a walking shield against such weapons. plasma guns are anti light armour and heavy infantry, terminators count as "super"heavy infantry. Plasma guns on maximal setting will do 2D10 +9 damage and negate 10 points of a terminators 14 armour, so they do good a job at cutting through it with an average roll of 20 damage being reduced by an average of 12 ( 4 armour and 8 toughness bonus) . Plasma guns in 40K have always been recharging till very recently, the maximal settings represents what people see as the traditional plasma gun firing, normal setting is just a lower damage but gives you a shot every turn.
Melta guns do 2D10+8 with a pen of 13 so they cut through terminator very well so not sure what the complaint is there.
Dont for get we are only talking about the special versions of these types not the heavy weapon versions and terminators are supposed to stand up to small weapons fire.

The problem is people are ignoring the effect of penetration, look back at the boss fight tuesday, you guys firing bolters were finding that most of your shots were bouncing off and not doing damage to it, if you'd been have been firing plasma guns on maximal or melta weapons then you'd only have needed a slightly better than average roll to hurt the robot. So your storm bolter was getting upto 8 hits but normally only 2 were actually inflicting damage, were as about half of plasma hits would have done damage and with a melta gun over 75% of hits would have done damage. If you'd then used those weapons tactically and aimed for legs or other diasabling actions the lower fire rate would have not been the slightest problem. A few points of extra penertration may not seem like much but when you start looking at the statistics involved they can change a fight immensly .

[Nick]

Still not agreeing with it, i personally think it's a more efficient option to just buy some Kraken rounds or something instead of plasma. Peronally i feel that plasma should at least deal an extra D10 base damage, would make it better at taking down a single target, while bolt weapons would still deal far more damage vs lightly armoured targets. Thanks for the answers anyway.

[Zeewulf]

Against most random run of the mill bad guys i dont bother with hit locations too much since i dont give them critical hits, they just die when at zero wounds, the main problem I've had so far with the bad guys i do use critical results on is that they dont confirm with the usual hit tables due to extra limbs or body shape lol. It's a very useful skill if you spot weak points on a target or want to take it alive and with the move in the next few adventures towards more humanoid bad guys it will probably see more use unless you're still using your storm bolter to spray :-p.

Technically you can only heal one point of critical damage how ever we tend to just have a successful heal put them back on zero wounds but some critical effects will still be in force, eg if your leg was blown off, its still gone .

Squad and solo mode abilities all have their own time taken to use, some are free actions, some require a half or more actions.

Plasma guns are powerful however theres no specific mention that they specifically go through terminator armour, infact 40k literature is full of stories of terminators surviving plasma and even being used as a walking shield against such weapons. plasma guns are anti light armour and heavy infantry, terminators count as "super"heavy infantry. Plasma guns on maximal setting will do 2D10 +9 damage and negate 10 points of a terminators 14 armour, so they do good a job at cutting through it with an average roll of 20 damage being reduced by an average of 12 ( 4 armour and 8 toughness bonus) . Plasma guns in 40K have always been recharging till very recently, the maximal settings represents what people see as the traditional plasma gun firing, normal setting is just a lower damage but gives you a shot every turn.
Melta guns do 2D10+8 with a pen of 13 so they cut through terminator very well so not sure what the complaint is there.
Dont for get we are only talking about the special versions of these types not the heavy weapon versions and terminators are supposed to stand up to small weapons fire.

The problem is people are ignoring the effect of penetration, look back at the boss fight tuesday, you guys firing bolters were finding that most of your shots were bouncing off and not doing damage to it, if you'd been have been firing plasma guns on maximal or melta weapons then you'd only have needed a slightly better than average roll to hurt the robot. So your storm bolter was getting upto 8 hits but normally only 2 were actually inflicting damage, were as about half of plasma hits would have done damage and with a melta gun over 75% of hits would have done damage. If you'd then used those weapons tactically and aimed for legs or other diasabling actions the lower fire rate would have not been the slightest problem. A few points of extra penertration may not seem like much but when you start looking at the statistics involved they can change a fight immensly .

Oh I've already looked at PEN for my weapons hence why I decided at the end of the last but one session to start using Kraken rounds, gives me an extra 50% range and up's my pen to 8. So my possible dmg could be 4d10+5 (due to aim ect.) and then +2 for my Mighty Shot talent.

So could give me a MAX of 47/Pen 8 (not including any 10 rolls) or a minimum of 11/Pen 8. Plus with my range being 300mtrs gives me time to inflict some dmg before they get into range with their weapons.

Couldn't use it last session as I continued on from the previous session with my ammo tally.

Admittedly I'm only doing single shots but with the talents i have planned my single shots will be over range and at specific locations if/when needed.

[jimbobabob]

sniping for fun and profit dean lol.

Nick plasma guns that are fired every turn are effectively firing on half power, hence the low damage, a full power every other turn shot will damage pretty much everything in the game that isnt protected by a shield or magic. Also dont forget bolters are rapid firing mini missiles so upgrading that so its firing armour piercing mini missiles should be nasty. Also special ammo is bought by the clip so for the cost of a plasm gun you'd get 112 bolter shots doing an average of 14 damage with pen 8, but the plasma gun would give you 120 shots of average damage 14 with a pen of 8 and the option of using extra ammo for some really hard hits.

also kraken rounds are technically rare while plasma gun ammo bottles can technically be filled by anyone with the know how and access to a plasma storage unit which since most imperial power plants are plasma based its a lot easy to replenish the plasma ammo :-p


Im reluctant to start using house rules for one specific weapon type because throws everything out of balance.

[Nick]

Don't forget that the rate of fire of the Bolter is double the plasma, and avg dmg of Bolter is 15, not 14. Admittedly this means chewing through ammo faster, but much higher damage per round.