Space Marine weapons questions

[andrewgpaul]

That pic looks 'shopped - there's never been anything in-setting described as a SAW, for example, and as far as I'm aware, Commander Azrael of the Dark Angels has the only bullpup boltgun ever depicted in the setting.

[white_rabbit]

An interesting idea I've looked at for scaling the Cobra is that in the Blood Angels series by james Swallow, he refers to the forward guns of the battlebarge Bellus and its sister Europae as being as long as a Cobra destroyer.

If we assume that either the pointy things or the "hammerhead" section of a classic Marine BB, which is what the two above ships are described as, either contain or are said heavy guns, we can estimate a length for a Cobra. I prefer the hammerhead section, as christ knows what the pointy things could be, but there isn't much difference to be honest.

Anyway, based on a BB length of 5km (I'm fairly sure they are actually five MILES but I can't find the damn quote.) this makes a Cobra destroyer roughly a thousand metres long.

Of course, since Mr Swallow has apparently decided that Battleships are less than a thousand metres in length in 40k, using that length, a Cobra destroyer is actually barely 200 metres long.


That pic is absolutely shopped, the Mentor legions kit hasn't been portrayed to my memory, not even in their White-dwarf appearance years ago.

Not be horribly offensive, but I don't suppose anyone would care to supply their sources for all the nice shiny numbers for the Cobra ? I mean, I occasionally read the odd 40k book, and the only two that really come to mind are the Rapid Strike vessel from Angels of Darkness and the above from the blood angels books.

Into the Eye of Terror of course has them as incredibly tiny parasite ships.

[Cykeisme]

Cripes, why can't GW just canonize the size of ships?

I understand why they'd want ambiguity in the actual ranges involved in Battlefleet Gothic (since space combat can be portrayed as realistic million-km blasting OR Space Is An Ocean-style slugging matches where they pull up alongside each other, and both are awesome), but ship sizes should be set in stone.

[loomer]

Wouldn't the 'G' variants be kind of, I don't know, redundant?

You're basically shooting RPGs of the same size anyway, it just adds more weight (not really an issue) and makes the weapon more cumbersome.

[white_rabbit]

Wouldn't the 'G' variants be kind of, I don't know, redundant?

It could be of some use for indirect fire, although that capability has been given for Bolters before.

There are a few "G" variants around as models, I've been using them to convert some Sternguard recently myself. The grenade itself might be more powerful or have a different role, Bolter rounds have both propulsion and anti-armour tips taking up space that you could fill up with more boom.

Cripes, why can't GW just canonize the size of ships?

Its less effort not to.

Mind you, 3000m for cruisers is pretty solid, the author of the recent Relentless novel + short story admitted on their forums that 8km for the length of the Mars class was a bit of a fuckup.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Wouldn't the 'G' variants be kind of, I don't know, redundant?

You're basically shooting RPGs of the same size anyway, it just adds more weight (not really an issue) and makes the weapon more cumbersome.

The 'G' variant could represent a bolter with Auxillary Grenade Launcher attached. A captain-grade upgrade in 5th ed that gives the wielder a 12" Assault 1 grenade launcher that can fire in addition to any other weapons.