Twin-Linked Weapons - What does it really mean?

[cadianshock]

The comments from Sandwyrm here [url]http://cadianshock.com/twin-linked-weapons-really-mean/#comment-1906797239[/url] may demo what you are both talking about, it links to this YouTube video [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNX6uSdushg[/url]

[Kirsten]

you are clearly all over thinking it. weapons in 40k are twinlinked because two guns are better than one gun. like the mammoth tank in Red Alert, somebody looked at the heavy tank and thought, it is good, but what if it had twice as many guns? somebody looked at the las cannon and thought, if I doubled these up, it would look at least twice as cool! and nobody questioned it, because it was true.

[cadianshock]

you are clearly all over thinking it. weapons in 40k are twinlinked because two guns are better than one gun. like the mammoth tank in Red Alert, somebody looked at the heavy tank and thought, it is good, but what if it had twice as many guns? somebody looked at the las cannon and thought, if I doubled these up, it would look at least twice as cool! and nobody questioned it, because it was true.

Over thinking it perhaps, but its a game, its a little fun exploring how rules would be represented in real life. Its not meant to be taken too seriously.

But its not as simple as two is better than one. If it was two is better than one then two should be able to hit, e.g I pick up one gun fire it and hit, I pick up a second gun fire it and hit. Thats not whats happening.

Hit a bird with this stone or that stone – but by the Emperor’s holy name you mustn’t hit it with both!

[Broodingman87]

Over thinking it perhaps, but its a game, its a little fun exploring how rules would be represented in real life. Its not meant to be taken too seriously.

But its not as simple as two is better than one. If it was two is better than one then two should be able to hit, e.g I pick up one gun fire it and hit, I pick up a second gun fire it and hit. Thats not whats happening.

Hit a bird with this stone or that stone – but by the Emperor’s holy name you mustn’t hit it with both!

Yeah, there are a lot of fallacies in the AP system as a whole, this thread isn't about that so please try not to get off on a tangent but I'll stat it as an example. The wound process, roll to hit, roll to wound, then roll saves. Why are you saving after the wound is taken, that like when you were playing Cowboys and Indians and your friend say "I shot you, you're dead" and you respond "nota because I have this super awesome duper armor". One thing to fix this is to have the saves come before the wounds. In the D20 system (used in dnd), to hit and armor saves are one test you roll to hit vs the target's armor class which is a total of all the target's defenses (flexibility, armor thickness, skin thickness, etc.). Which is why I say there is a need for a D20 wargame.

I usually say with the Twin-Linked rule, it's like saying that the left one missed but, now you can say the right one hit.

[CoffeeGrunt]

You roll Saves after Wounds, so that they can add in systems like Rending which decide what Saves you're allowed based on the Wound roll. Twin-Linked Gets Hot weapons re-roll the overheat effect just doesn't make sense though.

"Ooh, right gun overheated, but the left one didn't. Guess I'm not getting flambeed today then!"

[Broodingman87]

You roll Saves after Wounds, so that they can add in systems like Rending which decide what Saves you're allowed based on the Wound roll. Twin-Linked Gets Hot weapons re-roll the overheat effect just doesn't make sense though.

"Ooh, right gun overheated, but the left one didn't. Guess I'm not getting flambeed today then!"

The exception is not the rule. You cannot deny how dumb it is to have a bullet/claw go backwards in time. I liked that joke, that was quite funny.

[Chris*ta]

you are clearly all over thinking it. weapons in 40k are twinlinked because two guns are better than one gun. like the mammoth tank in Red Alert, somebody looked at the heavy tank and thought, it is good, but what if it had twice as many guns? somebody looked at the las cannon and thought, if I doubled these up, it would look at least twice as cool! and nobody questioned it, because it was true.

Yes, this is pretty much why there are so many twin-linked weapons in 40K. Historically, it was realised fairly quickly that one big gun is better than two (or more) little guns fairly quickly, during WW2 in fact (at least in most circumstances).

Which is why, sadly, we never saw tanks like this on the battlefield:

[Path Walker]

Why does being behind a wall make you no less vunerable to being hit just more able to deal with being hit? The game has abstractions, twin linking is a way of abstracting that the guns are more likely to hit because you're firing more shots.

[Kirsten]

I don't know, personally I find walls very reassuring.

[CoffeeGrunt]

The exception is not the rule. You cannot deny how dumb it is to have a bullet/claw go backwards in time.

You're assuming that Hit-Wound-Save rolls all happen in sequence, rather than at the same time. Hit represents the shot landing, Wound represents the shot inflicting lethal damage, and Saves represent the chance of various protections preventing that from happening. Logically, yes, Saves should come before Wounds, but alternating dice rolls would take longer than simply handing your opponent their Saves after you roll Hits and Wounds, and it allows effects based on Wound rolls to affect Saves. If you imagine all the rolls occurring in the same instant, then it makes much more sense. "That shot would've hit their heart and taken them down, but luckily the armour plating blocked it!"

As Path Walker says, 40K is very much about abstraction feeding the narrative rather than everything occurs in reality precisely as it does on the table a la Warmachine. In older Editions they even said that 10 Space Marines could be representative of 100 on the field.

Another one we talk about a lot is how a single Guardsman can stop a Railgun shot capable of punching through both sides of a Leman Russ, sucking the crew through the exit hole and scattering their pureed remains. Yet it can only ever kill a single Guardsman a turn if it shot them directly.