So, 2D Heavy Bolters are a thing now.

[Warhead01]

I've seen a few reddit posts with Heavy Bolters being 1 Shot, 2 Damage? Am seeing this wrong or will that just be for  Astartes Heavy Bolters. 

Haven't seen anything official from GW. However, they said when the SM codex drops ever other same weapon across the board will be counted identical the the SM  codex counterpart. 

Shouldn't be too long before we know what's really going on. 

[Phubar]

Was that the heavy bolter "pistol" of the primaris dreddy, the cowboy one?

[duz_]

Let's try and keep the focus on Imperial Guard and not the lesser Space Marines

 

Without any other official information we can only assume that the heavy bolter will remain heavy 3 and 2 damage

Heavy bolter pistols is not an option the Imperial Guard have access to

[Shamansky]

By the way Scout sentinels became sugnificantly less durable than Armoured ones.

[HallofStovokor]

By the way Scout sentinels became sugnificantly less durable than Armoured ones.

I guess, but that's just because failing a save will hurt a lot more and scouts are more likely to fail save in general as well as get wounded.

[Shamansky]

Yep. And because Deft Manoeuvring stratagem can only be used on Armoured Sentinels

[Gothical]

The Heavy Bolter change is very interesting. I am not sure it significantly changes much for Leman Russes (mostly thanks to other weapon changes) but it does mean there is a little more of a reason to take a Hull Heavy Bolter over a Lascannon.

 

For example, prior to the various announcements I was going to run a Demolisher with 3 Heavy Flamers and a Storm Bolter for brutal short-ranged work that can take on both tanks and infantry with ease (theory being people want to charge it to avoid 2D6 of Demolisher Cannon only to find overwatching Heavy Flamers overloading their armour saves). However, it now seems that the Leman Russ Punisher might be better off with the Heavy Flamers (since it can fire the turret in melee too making it terrifying), the Demolisher with Multi-Meltas (tanks and elite infantry will melt before it but it has to beware combat), and regular Leman Russes who are more stand-offish will benefit from the Heavy Bolter, or nothing to keep them cheaper.

 

If Plasma Cannons get the Blast rule then those are very nice sponson weapons too and will out-perform the Heavy Bolters against everything but 5-man units.

 

However, where this is going to be a significant change is on the Superheavy options and the amount of sponsons they can take that come with dual Heavy Bolters. That wall of dakka is now going to be better against vehicles as well as increasing the killing potential against Primaris.

 

For infantry units I would wait and see what happens with the Autocannon before deciding one way or another. It has always been my default heavy weapon but it loses a lot of ground against the new Heavy Bolter and potentially the Missile Launcher too (thanks to Frag Blasts).

[sairence]

The more I think about this the less I like it. A Devastator Squad with Heavy Bolters and rerolls is going to be able to solo a Leman Russ now on average. That is not meant to be an anti-tank setup. :-/

A single Multimelta in half range can solo one with a bit of luck.

 

Whenever our Codex comes we're going to need either serious point drops on our vehicles or a serious survivability boost. And one that doesn't just rely on strategems.

[Captain Caine 24th]

Part of me says to focus a list on cheap units so the D2 is wasted on my army. At the same time heavy 3 is meant to kill hordes. I've been considering a list with fairly expensive Russ(es) (punisher or demolisher) loaded out with sponsons and protected by bullgryns. Now I worry a lot more about surviving. Well, bullgryns have a nice save, but volume fire adds up. Also, one Russ might get the nice overwatch, but a dedicated melee unit will kill a Russ before it gets to shoot into combat. That is, I love D2 from an offensive standpoint, but it may be a headache defensively. Imperial fists, with all their stacked bonuses, will be frothing at the mouth seeing me bring a tank company list. So to some extent I'm back where I started; maybe expensive toys aren't worth it if they'll die too easily. Yet objectives require us to take ground, and hordes won't last long in the open, glorious though it may be.

[Shamansky]

A single Thunderhammered marine veteran can destroy a Leman Russ tank in one fight phase.

[Cap'm Heckus]

It does make me wonder what a guard army is going to look like when we eventually do get our codex. They’ll either need to have a way for us to get more boots in the ground or toughen up our vehicles.

[duz_]

Seem to be speculating a lot more than just 2D heavy bolters at this point?

 

Thematically it makes sense that a HB does more damage than a regular bolter

To me it seems odd that they bumped Marines to 2 wounds then made their iconic weapon the perfect output to wipe them out in one volley

 

I'd be curious to see how they're priced vs autocannons for inclusion in infantry squads

Side note on that just read in the rules that in 9th if anyone in the unit moves the whole unit counts as moving :down:

[Warhead01]

Seem to be speculating a lot more than just 2D heavy bolters at this point?

 

Thematically it makes sense that a HB does more damage than a regular bolter

To me it seems odd that they bumped Marines to 2 wounds then made their iconic weapon the perfect output to wipe them out in one volley

 

I'd be curious to see how they're priced vs autocannons for inclusion in infantry squads

Side note on that just read in the rules that in 9th if anyone in the unit moves the whole unit counts as moving

I would imagine it averages out. HB cost more SM cost more The 2 wounds is still a gain for the SM over the HB due to negative to hit modifiers and bonuses to save. 

I don't see a HB as very ideal for facing SM's at all. The extra wound just complicates things.

I am sure there is some mathhammer floating around explaining it far better than I could. But my gut says it doesn't really do much against Marines as a whole. 

 

Any model moving counting as the whole unit moving is old hat for a lot of us. Not as dynamic as before but not a foreign concept either. 

I expect Heavy weapons teams to be the normal way people field most Heavy weapons. some will need to be fielded in squads for the ablative wounds vs points costs.

Good oll' meat shields. 

 

A lot of the core game rules seem like a real SM buff this edition. Which is fine I guess, if it helps them feel more special on the table, more like the fluff. 

AM still have a lot of tricks I am sure. 

I'm more keen to gun down Ork boys with heavy bolters than SM's.  Less aiming is needed. 

[domsto]

After thinking about the new Heavy Bolter a lot, i have to say i don't like it.

for me the bigger caliber of the HB over the normal one was already shown for beeing s5/-1 instead of s4/0.

The Heavy Bolter is a belt feed full automatic Gun, so for me a change from Heavy 3 to Heavy 5 would have been better.

As it is now, the Heavy Bolter didn't get any better in his role i see him in(gunning down Medium Infantry) and gets pushed into a more Antitank role.

This will become a serious Problem for Guard as the HB will now gun down our Vehicals, while we profit not much from the D2 

[Hiroitchi]

 

I've seen a few reddit posts with Heavy Bolters being 1 Shot, 2 Damage? Am seeing this wrong or will that just be for  Astartes Heavy Bolters. 

Haven't seen anything official from GW. However, they said when the SM codex drops ever other same weapon across the board will be counted identical the the SM  codex counterpart. 

Shouldn't be too long before we know what's really going on. 

 

 

 

this was the leak for the scout squad with a heavy bolter.

 

[sairence]

The one shot thing comes from the Invictor Warsuit and it's cowboy pistol.

[dadieau]

Well I'll take the 2d. I was stunned with the point increase on the guard weapons. My 2k army became 2400+. Pulling out 400+ points was like watching my left arm get cut off (I was actually thinking of another body part that would most likely be censored). My army was Hv Bolter heavy and will remain so. My army will be less cost effective against soft skinned targets (guard, skinnies, zombies, Tau) and better against Space Marines, mean skinnies vehicles and the like. Every new edition requires adaption, change, reevaluation of all available assets. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by dadieau

[War Angel]

Why not bump up to 3k?