Flyers - The great disappointment?

[Mark Mitchell]

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[nuclearfeet]

40k is not a battlefield simulator.

Lol. Very very far from it.

[MacKinley Johnston]

I don't see it.
I don't see anyone being comfortable with standard-issue infantry weapons making 3, 5, or 10 shots a piece, per turn, while being able to essentially hit anything they have line of sight to. The rate of fire issue is just a matter of practicality and economy of die rolls.

As for the range issue, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation (I've said this here before): tactical bias. Most Imperial-held worlds (outliers like Fenris or Catachan notwithstanding) are Hive Worlds, or at the very least are far enough along in the urbanization process that they are practically Hives already. Such conditions generally negate the benefits of most long arms, and demand a degree of fire discipline i.e.: conserving ammo, taking shoots when you have them, and firing on the advance. Carbine-format weaponry tends to perform better in that scenario than full-size rifles, despite having shorter range and less ammunition, because they can be readied faster.

Vehicle speed has nothing to do with the assumed maximum distance a comparable vehicle could move in a discrete period of time, because turns are not discrete periods of time. 40K turns are a narrative convention, not an artifact of accounting.

TL;DR: 40k isn't a simulationist game.

I just try not to take the game too literally, otherwise characters in both my guard armies would have resurrected themselves enough times to make Christ insecure or at the very least be made Imperial saints a few times over :P

I've also done a few years as a Napoleonic re-enactor portraying a British Grenadier on the Niagara Frontier circa 1812, I would at least hope that a bolter is more reliable than my temperamental ol'Bessy. Although, according to contemporary writings on the subject of fortress building, the standard effective musket range they used when planning new forts was about 300 yards, not 50 like most people think. Probably meant for volleys with more than just a couple soldiers but effective range doesn't just mean the range where individuals can make their targets reliably. If you're a read coat you're basically a cog and barrel carrier in the best and fastest firing battalion or company sized organ gun ever conceived. So don't underestimate muskets, they're actually a decent weapon on a larger scale when wielded by disciplined professionals.

[Psychosplodge]

Do YOU know what makes a good soldier?

The ability to fire three rounds a minute

[Mr Mystery]

Bloody 'ell 'Arper.

[MacKinley Johnston]

Do YOU know what makes a good soldier?

The ability to fire three rounds a minute

Good ol' Sharpe.

He's right though! I've gotten 9 in three minutes at a competition so I averaged out to the old British infantry standard at my peak. Speed loading with a muzzle loader is hard skill to learn. Kinda on the fence whether I should put it on my resume though...

But ya, flyers are cool too :P

[Psychosplodge]

Well considering modern RoF it's not really a selling point anymore.

[Haighus]

I always thought the dice rolled in 40k represented one effective 'burst' of fire. So for a bolter, this would be one of the 4 round bursts, a lasgun would fire a scattering of shots, a missile launcher a single missile, but they would all equate to one dice worth or 'burst'. Some weapons are capable of putting out such a high number of rounds they are equivalent to many 'bursts' like heavy bolters or Punisher gatling cannons.