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Ranged Weapons

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Explosive Weapons

Despite the domination of plasma guns, lascannons and multi-meltas on the battlefields of the 41^st Millennium, there is still a place for conventional explosives and missile launchers. There are several reasons for this.

Primarily, there is economics. A missile launcher is a lot cheaper than a more high tech weapon. Therefore many military organisations will avoid the prohibitive initial outlay required to furnish an army with advanced weapons by just buying a few and giving the rest of the soldiers rocket and grenade launchers. The higher cost of ammunition is generally soaked up by subsequent years’ materiel budgets.

Secondly, there is function. There is no energy weapon that can replace the ability of a soldier to throw a grenade around a corner or down a bunker’s ventilation shaft, nor are they capable of firing in a projectile arc over intervening buildings and terrain and then exploding on impact.

Finally, there is simplicity. An explosive shell requires few, if any, complicated electronics, and can be put together by semi-skilled manufactorum workers, and the launcher or cannon that fires it is only slightly more complex. Meanwhile, a tech-priest must labour to create every plasma cannon or melta gun that effectively fulfils exactly the same battlefield role.

Grenades, missiles and some more exotic weapons explode and cause damage over a wide area. Because of this, they function in a slightly different way to normal shooting.

Designate the target point, and then roll to hit as normal, with all the usual modifiers for movement, range and so on.

If the shot misses, it scatters D10 yards, +1 yard for every 10 points or part that the Ballistic Skill test was failed by, in a random direction (determined by whatever means the GM sees fit) before exploding. Shots will not scatter more than a quarter of the distance fired.

The GM should use common sense to decide how the actual missed shot scatters. It may hit a wall before scattering its full distance, or it may fall far too short of the initial target, by hitting a window frame en route. The emphasis should be on keeping the miss realistic (or at the very least, entertaining), rather than sticking to the letter of the rules.

Blast weapons have two additional characteristics:

Blast        The intensity of the explosion. This determines how many hits are taken by a character caught within the explosion.

Radius     The distance from the landing point that the explosion extends, in yards. Any character caught within this explosion will take damage.

Damage from a blast weapon is divided equally amongst a number of random locations, equal to the weapon’s Blast characteristic. If the same location is hit more than once, total up the damage inflicted on that location before penetrating armour, applying injuries and so on.

If a character is lying prone within the explosion, the damage he takes is halved.

Characters caught within a blast are always stunned for one round, in addition to any other injuries they may have taken.

Blast weapons are exceptionally lethal in enclosed areas like the inside of a bunker, as shrapnel and shockwaves get bounced off the walls, smashing into characters from all sides. To represent this, if a blast in an enclosed area (foxhole, room, vehicle etc.) is so large that no section of its perimeter is within the boundaries of the room (e.g. a three yard diameter blast in the centre of a two-yard diameter foxhole), double damage is caused to characters caught within it, and the explosion’s Blast characteristic is doubled.

Damage is not modified for cover or for lying prone, since the blast and shrapnel are rebounding off every wall, but armour and force fields are used as normal.

The long range of a thrown weapon is equal to half the character’s Strength (i.e. the Strength of one arm) minus the Encumbrance of the weapon. Short range is determined by dividing the long range by three, while medium range is double short range. For convenience, it is probably worth calculating these range bands on the character sheet, and adjusting them whenever a character’s Strength changes. There is no extreme range for thrown weapons.

Thrown weapons use the Pistol modifiers for range (short = +10, medium = -20, long = -40).

If the roll to hit is a matched failure, roll a D6 on the following table:

Example: Sergeant Tavis and his squad are hidden in a foxhole as a group of rebels approach. When they are ten yards away, Tavis tosses a frag grenade in their direction.

Some weapons can be fired or lobbed at a trajectory that takes it over intervening terrain, allowing characters to fire at points outside of their line of sight.

Indirect fire like this is resolved in the same way as normal blast weapon or grenade fire, except that the shot always scatters D10 yards.

However, if the roll to hit is successful, this distance is reduced by one yard for every ten points or part that it was passed by. If the D10 roll is reduced to 0 or less, then the shot is dead on target and does not scatter.

If the roll to hit was unsuccessful, the distance scattered is increased by one yard for every ten points or part that it was failed by.

Characters may forego their next action in order to react to a grenade attack in one of the following ways. Grenades that explode on impact cannot be reacted to – there just isn’t the time.

A character within one yard of the detonation point may attempt to catch the grenade, or scoop it up from the floor, and throw it away (usually back at the attacker). This requires an Initiative test. If successful, the character may attempt to throw the grenade normally. If the Initiative test is failed, the grenade explodes before the character can pick it up.

Characters may attempt to dive out of the blast radius of a grenade, assuming there’s somewhere to dive to. This requires an Initiative test to succeed. If successful, the character manages to scramble D10 yards and throw himself prone before the grenade explodes.

If a character is within one yard of the detonation point and is brave, dedicated or stupid enough to dive onto a grenade to shield his comrades from the blast, he must take an Initiative test to reach the grenade before it explodes. If the test is passed, the damage from the explosion is directed against the character’s chest or abdomen location (equal chance of either). The attack causes no damage to anyone else within the usual area of the explosion, since it has been absorbed by the self-sacrificing character.

Example: A Chaos cultist of Khorne dives onto a grenade thrown at his master, Arch-Demagogue Napharitus by Inquisitor Covenant. The doomed acolyte takes 28 points of damage to the body, bloodily tearing him in half.

A character within one yard of the detonation point may attempt to kick the grenade away (many bunkers have trenches in the floor, designed for this purpose) by taking an Initiative test. If successful, the grenade is kicked D10 yards away from the character, plus one yard for every full 10 points of Strength the character has above 50, before it explodes.

The anti-plant grenade uses a bio-engineered virus tailored to destroy vegetable matter yet leave other organic tissue and inanimate objects unharmed. The virus’s most common use is in jungle warfare, where aircraft spray it to defoliate vast areas, denying cover to enemy guerrilla fighters. Certain Imperial Guard commanders have also found it to be of use against the part-algal orks, although official Guard policy forbids this as a waste of expensive resources.

Specialist Weapon: Anti-plant grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Delay: Anti-plant grenades explode a few seconds after being thrown, and so targets have time to react to the attack.

Anti-Plant: Anti-plant grenades will destroy all plant matter in the area of effect, reducing it to rotting brown mulch. The virus dies almost immediately.

Orks: Orks hit by an anti-plant grenade suffer 2D6 damage, but will not suffer location injury.

Releasing both dense smoke and broad-spectrum electromagnetic interference, blind grenades make a powerful, if expensive, method of protecting troops as they advance.

Specialist Weapon: Blind grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Delay: Blind grenades explode a few seconds after being thrown, and so targets have time to react to the attack.

Blind: The area of a blind grenade’s explosion is impossible to see or target through or out of, even with psychic abilities or auspex scanners. Any character moving through the field at greater than walking speed must pass an Initiative test or fall over. Close combat within the field is at a –20 WS penalty.

Dispersal: The blind field reduces in radius by one yard per round.

Often assembled by the troops or terrorists that use them, demolition charges consist of bundles of explosive attached to a timer or other detonator. Their weight requires great strength to throw it far enough to avoid harming the user, so most prefer to plant demolition charges to destroy stationary targets.

Specialist Weapon: Demolition charges require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Bomb: Demolition charges are often attached with timed, proximity or remote fuses to act as booby traps or to destroy buildings.

A typical fragmentation grenade scatters thousands of shards of shrapnel at a target. Although frag grenades are not designed to kill outright, but to incapacitate, the explosions are easily capable of taking off limbs are causing other severe injuries.

Specialist Weapon: Frag grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Delay or Impact: Frag grenades are available with both impact and delay fuses.

Chemical weapons are widely used by Imperial armed forces and law enforcement agencies, but planetary governments vary on their attitude towards them. The main drawback of gas weapons is that the particles are so light that even a slight breeze can send a cloud of toxic chemicals drifting back over friendly troops. This difficulty is enhanced even more so in the close quarters of grenade combat.

Specialist Weapon: Gas grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Delay: The initial slow release of gas from a grenade means that characters have a chance to react to them.

Gas: Various toxins are available in the form of gas weapons, as detailed on the Trading Charts. Characters within or passing through a gas cloud will be affected by the gas if they fail a Resistance test.

Dispersal: The gas will thin as time goes on, with a cumulative +10 bonus to Resistance tests each round, before becoming ineffective when the bonus reaches +50. Under certain conditions, the gas may disperse more quickly or slowly. For example, heavy artillery gas bombardment will disperse slowly, while gas clouds in a gale will be scattered within a round or two.

Although they don’t literally explode, haywire grenades release a continuous spray in of foil chaff accompanied by electromagnetic interference that interferes with electrical equipment.

Specialist Weapon: Haywire grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: Haywire grenades detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

Dampening: Any item of electrical equipment cease to function while within the haywire field. This includes all items using power packs, vehicles and anything powered from the mains. Power and terminator armour are rendered inert.

Dispersal: The haywire field has a 25% chance of dissipating at the end of every round.

Whether a manufactured phosphor grenade or a bottle of promethium with a burning rag fuse, incendiary grenades are popular with virtually every battlefield soldier. The propensity for burning fuel to pour into foxholes and trenches makes them lethal in attacking fortified positions.

Specialist Weapon: Incendiary grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: Incendiary grenades detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

Incendiary: There is a 50% chance that each location hit by an incendiary grenade will be set on fire (D3 damage). See the GM’s Section for more details.

The krak grenade is designed for taking down heavy infantry or lightly armoured vehicles, using an extremely powerful but short-ranged explosive charge that detonates with the distinctive sound that gives the grenade its name.

Specialist Weapon: Krak grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: Krak grenades detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

The melta bomb differs from other grenade types in that it cannot be thrown. Instead it must be attached (either by electromagnetic clamps or spring-loaded spikes) to a vehicle or structure, whereupon it sends a short-ranged melta-beam directly into the target, causing massive amounts of damage.

Specialist Weapon: Melta bombs require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Demolition: Melta bombs cannot be thrown and must be used in a demolition or anti-tank capacity. It takes one action to set up a melta bomb, clamping it to any inanimate object (i.e. not a character). It will then explode, inflicting a single hit on the target.

Photon flash flares, also known as photon grenades, stun grenades or flashbangs, emit a burst of highly charged photons upon detonation. They are primarily used by special forces or law enforcers to blind and disorientate targets before neutralising them by other means. Because of the possibility of rendering comrades blind, they are rarely used on the open battlefield, and restricted to urban theatres of combat.

Specialist Weapon: Photon flash flares require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: For maximum surprise effect, photon flash flares detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

Photon Flash: Any character in the immediate area and who has a line of sight to the grenade’s detonation point (not including the thrower) must pass an Initiative test to cover their eyes or be stunned for D3 rounds (note that they are not knocked prone). Characters expecting the photon flash flare to be thrown may add +20 to their Initiative. If the Initiative test is a matched failure, the character suffers permanent blindness in one or both eyes (roll a D6: 1-4 one eye is blinded, 5-6 both eyes are blinded).

Electronic sighting equipment, including bionic eyes, infravision goggles/visors and most gunsights have a 50% chance of being overloaded by the flash and rendered useless until repaired.

A plasma grenade is essentially a flask of plasma, held stable within a magnetic field maintained by an integral power cell. When the grenade detonates, the magnetic field is shut off and the plasma bursts free in a rapidly expanding but quickly evaporating ball of incandescent photohydrogen.

Specialist Weapon: Plasma grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Delay: Plasma grenades explode a few seconds after being thrown, and so targets have time to react to the attack.

A complicated and rare grenade type, intended for use by elite troops combating Daemons as much as for neutralising human or alien psykers, the psyk-out grenade uses the same technology as the anti-psychic bolts of the Ordo Malleus psycannon. Each psyk-out grenade is hand-assembled on Ancient Terra by an untouchable in the service of the Ordo Malleus, accompanied by a priest who intones sacred rites of banishment over the grenade.

Specialist Weapon: Psyk-out grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: Psyk-out grenades detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

Daemons: Any daemonic character caught within the blast of a psyk-out grenade immediately suffers 2D10 damage (but not location injury).

Psykers: A psychic character hit by the blast (including Daemons with psychic abilities) must pass a Willpower test for each psychic or wyrd power they possess. Failure means that the psyker has forgotten how to use the power, although he will remember in 2D6 days. A matched failure on a Willpower test means that the power has been completely stripped from his mind and he can never relearn it.

Less effective than a blind grenade, but available at a fraction of the price, smoke grenades are simply canisters of chemicals that react on exposure to air by producing a thick smokescreen.

Specialist Weapon: Smoke grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Delay: The initial slow release of smoke from a grenade means that characters have a chance to react to them.

Smoke: Any character firing through the thick, oily smoke suffers an additional –50 to hit and can’t make placed shots.

Dispersal: The smoke will thin as time goes on, with the shooting penalty reduced by –10 each round until it has no effect and the smoke has completely dissipated. Under certain conditions, the smoke may disperse more quickly or slowly.

Containing a miniature stasis generator that freezes time around it when it detonates, the stasis grenade is a rare and expensive way of capturing a prisoner alive and unharmed. Unfortunately, when the stasis field disengages, the prisoner is still fully armed and in the same aggressive mood as he was when the grenade was thrown, although the changes that have taken place since being trapped in stasis all seem to occur instantaneously, which is often enough to disorientate the prisoner enough to allow for his overpowering and capture.

Specialist Weapon: Stasis grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: Stasis grenades detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

Stasis: A stasis grenade has two areas of effect. Characters and objects within the inner area are completely suspended from the progression of time and can do nothing at all. Neither can outside forces interact with them – they cannot be communicated with, attacked or harmed in any way, even using psychic powers.

Characters in the outer area of effect can only take one action per round, rather than two, and are at half Initiative.

Dispersal: Each round, there is a 25% chance that the stasis grenade’s areas of effect will reduce in radius by one yard. This means that after two reductions, the inner field vanishes, and after three, the outer field also disappears.

The tanglefoot grenade uses heavy charged particles to interfere with the neural activity in a target’s legs, effectively temporarily hamstringing him through crippling pins and needles. It is an unusual weapon, understood by few and used by even fewer.

Specialist Weapon: Tanglefoot grenades require the Specialist Weapon – Grenade ability.

Impact: Tanglefoot grenades detonate on impact, and there is no time to react to them.

Tanglefoot: Any character in a tanglefoot field immediately falls prone and cannot move his legs. He is able to perform any other action, including dragging himself along the ground with his arms, provided he passes a Strength test first. Otherwise he remains in the field, flopping around like a grounded fish.

Dispersal: The tanglefoot field has a 50% chance of cutting out at the end of every round.

Slung underneath the barrel of another firearm, the auxiliary grenade launcher is a popular weapon for assault troops, enabling even standard troopers to clear rooms or bunkers before finishing off survivors with bullets or las-bolts.

Specialist Weapon: Auxiliary grenade launchers require the Specialist Weapon – Launcher ability.

Auxiliary Weapon: A single auxiliary grenade launcher can be fitted to any weapon of rifle-sized or above. The exterminator increases the Encumbrance of a weapon by +10.

Ammunition: The auxiliary grenade launcher can be loaded with any type of grenade with an Encumbrance of 8 or less. The weapon must also be fitted with a compressed gas canister, which will have enough gas for 50 launches.

Indirect Fire: The auxiliary grenade launcher is capable of indirect fire.

A large weapon with a reasonable capacity, a grenade launcher with a drum magazine is capable of firing grenades at a rate unrivalled by most other launcher weapons. However, the rate of fire never gets so high that it suffers the drawback of other drum-fed magazines – jamming. It is common practice to mix the grenades in a drum (a practice known as ‘making a fruit salad’) to maximise the weapon’s effect. For example, a gas grenade fired into a bunker will neutralise anyone who managed to avoid the deadly shrapnel of an earlier frag grenade.

Specialist Weapon: Drum magazine grenade launchers require the Specialist Weapon – Launcher ability.

Ammunition: The drum magazine grenade launcher can be loaded with any type of grenade with an Encumbrance of 8 or less. The weapon must also be fitted with a compressed gas canister, which will have enough gas for 50 launches.

Indirect Fire: The drum magazine grenade launcher is capable of indirect fire.

A simple gas powered launch tube, the single shot grenade launcher is loaded either by a snap open breech, or by dropping the grenade straight down the tube. Far cheaper than drum grenade launchers, they are more commonly used by paramilitary or bandit groups.

Specialist Weapon: Single shot grenade launchers require the Specialist Weapon – Launcher ability.

Ammunition: The single shot grenade launcher can be loaded with any type of grenade with an Encumbrance of 8 or less. The weapon must also be fitted with a compressed gas canister, which will have enough gas for 50 launches.

Indirect Fire: The single shot grenade launcher is capable of indirect fire.

So heavy that it is normally only carried by power-armoured Space Marines or mounted on a gun carriage, the missile launcher loads a rack of missiles that can be fired one after the other without reloading between shots. This allows a lone user to fire repeatedly without pausing. It also boasts an impressive range unrivalled by most other launchers, although it is far slower to reload once the clip has been emptied.

Specialist Weapon: Missile launchers require both the Specialist Weapon – Heavy and Specialist Weapon – Launcher abilities.

Ammunition: The missile launcher can fire any type of missile.

Reloading: The ten-action reload time of the missile launcher consists of two actions disengaging the rack from the weapon, six actions inserting missiles (at a rate of one per action) and two more actions engaging the rack. The weapon can be reloaded with fewer than six missiles if the user wishes, which will reduce the reload time by one action for every missile missing.

A common platoon-level support weapon, the mortar lobs shells in a high arc and drops them on the far side of any enemy fortifications. Other than this vital ability, the mortar’s chief strength is its versatility – it can fire ammunition ranging from harmless ‘corpse light’ illuminator shells to devastating airburst gas bombs.

Specialist Weapon: Mortars require both the Specialist Weapon – Heavy and Specialist Weapon – Launcher abilities.

Ammunition: The mortar can fire any type of mortar bomb.

Assembly: It takes two actions to set a mortar up for operation before it can fire. If two characters are sharing operation of the mortar (e.g. an Imperial Guard weapons team), these actions may be split between the two of them. The weapon can be pivoted or have angle adjustments made to it without any further penalties.

Ranging: The first shot from a mortar at a specific area (e.g. a street or a bridge) is always at –20 to hit. This is the ranging shot intended to determine the ideal arc. If this shot misses, the next shot at the same target is at –10 to hit, then zero penalty until such a time as a hit is scored. Once a hit has been scored, the target has been successfully ranged and all further shots at that target while the mortar is in its current location are at +20 to hit.

Relatively short ranged and inaccurate compared to most heavy weapons, the rocket launcher is still an effective squad support weapon. Most effective when used by a team of two, one to load and carry ammunition, and one to fire, it is capable of firing virtually any type of Imperial missile. The rocket launcher is the standard anti-tank weapon of the Imperial Guard.

Specialist Weapon: Rocket launchers require both the Specialist Weapon – Heavy and Specialist Weapon – Launcher abilities.

Ammunition: The rocket launcher can fire any type of missile.

The anti-tank ‘treadshredder’ is popular amongst light Imperial Guard regiments that don’t normally carry heavy weapons. The disposable super-krak rocket launcher is small and cheap enough that entire squads can be kitted out with them. This allows units to set up intricate ambushes that catch enemy armour in deadly crossfires, something that is impossible when the squad only carries a single re-usable launcher. Similarly, fragmentation disposable launchers (colloquially named ‘jack-in-the-boxes’ because they often come as a surprise to the victims) give a squad a massive one-use burst of firepower capable of devastating entire platoons of enemy infantry.

Specialist Weapon: Disposable rocket launchers require both the Specialist Weapon – Heavy and Specialist Weapon – Launcher abilities.

Ammunition: Virtually all disposable rocket launchers are loaded with either a super-frag or super-krak missile. Other ammunition is available, but they are so rare that they are not included on the Trading Charts.

One-Shot: Because the disposable rocket launcher is made out of cheap materials (in some models the tube is actually compacted woodpulp – cardboard by another name), a disposable rocket launcher can only be fired once and cannot be reloaded.

All grenade types are also available in missile format, with the following exceptions: frag, incendiary, krak, melta bomb, demolition charge. Missiles based on grenade types use exactly the same characteristics as the grenade, except that they all explode on impact and have their Encumbrance value changed to 8.

Carrying far more shrapnel than a frag grenade, the super-frag missile covers a wider area. It is normal for troops using super-frag missiles to refer to them simply as ‘frag missiles’.

The super-krak missile uses a concentrated high explosive charge to knock out tanks. The charge detonates on impact, melting the copper sheath surrounding it, sending molten gas and metal punching through the target’s armour. Although designed specifically for taking out tanks, super-krak missiles (aka ‘krak missiles’) have a well documented, if gruesome effect on armoured infantry. Against unarmoured ‘soft’ targets, the missile tends to plough messily through without detonating, but still causing massive damage.

Armour Penetration: Because of its anti-tank design, the armour value of any location hit by a super-krak missile is halved.

Glowing illuminator flares are used to light up the battlefield at night, so that sentries can watch out for enemy advancing under cover of darkness. The flares are fitted with small parachutes to slow their descent so that they cast their ‘corpse light’ for as long as possible before coming to rest.

Corpse Light: An illuminator flare lights up the area around the target point for up to 50 yards, although light will obviously be blocked by walls and other obstacles, casting long, shifting shadows across the battlefield. The corpse light lasts for D3 rounds (D3x10 seconds) before the flare lands and goes out.

A straightforward anti-personnel explosive, the frag shell uses a timed fuse to detonate just above the heads of the targets, scattering shrapnel over a wider area, although this reduces its effectiveness.

Replacing the shrapnel core of the frag shell with a phosphorus-based chemical that ignites on contact with air, incendiary bombs are highly effective at clearing out fortifications as the blazing chemical pours into trenches and through vision slits.

Incendiary: There is a 50% chance that each location hit by an incendiary bomb will be set on fire (D3 damage). See the GM’s Section for more details.

Mortars are often at their most effective when delivering chemical warheads to the enemy. By far the most common agents are those that attack the respiratory system (so-called ‘lungrot’ gases). Poorly equipped troops stand no chance against airbursting gas shells, and a well-placed mortar volley can kill dozens, if not hundreds, of men in seconds.

Gas: Lungrot combines the effects of the bloodfire and choke toxins. Characters within or passing through a gas cloud will be affected by the gas if they fail a Resistance test.

Dispersal: The gas will thin as time goes on, with a cumulative +10 bonus to Resistance tests each round, before becoming ineffective when the bonus reaches +50. Under certain conditions, the gas may disperse more quickly or slowly. For example, heavy artillery gas bombardment will disperse slowly, while gas clouds in a gale will be scattered within a round or two.

Used to provide cover for advancing troops, the putting up of a smokescreen may protect from enemy fire and corpse light, but it removes any element of surprise.

Smoke: Any character firing through the thick, oily smoke suffers an additional –50 to hit and can’t make placed shots.

Dispersal: The smoke will thin as time goes on, with the shooting penalty reduced by –10 each round until it has no effect and the smoke has completely dissipated. Under certain conditions, the smoke may disperse more quickly or slowly.