In BC, multiple melee attacks from Swift/Lightning attack work exactly the same as auto fire - they're based on DoS for a single attack roll, they're not distinct individual swings (as they are in DH/RT/DW). Meaning you dodge it just like autofire. A single LA can no longer burn through 2-3 reactions. 

 At the same time, it is harder to get additional reactions as Step Aside and Wall of steel are now one talent that gives a parry or dodge, instead of getting one of each.   I think the change balances out in the end with less attack rolls and less evasion rolls.  We did have to house rule lower caps on maximum hits for melee so it wasn't as overpowered.  

 You found the WS bonus as "RoF" to be overpowered?

With the AM having a WS of 70 and a pair of lightning claws there was virtualy nothing that could even remotely stand up to him.  A single well rolled swift attack on a charge killed a hive tyrant from full life. (This is using the toned down Zealous hatred rules instead of Righteous Fury as well so no added damage from that.)  Granted, this was before the BC Errata came out and said no multiple attacks on charge, but that's a completely different discussion. We decided to limit LA to 4 and SA to 3.  He still destroys hordes, just a little more than anyone else, instead of nearly twice as much as anyone else.

It's going to give the Lictor, for instance, a potential 12 hits a round, isn't it? WS65, Lightning Attack, Multiple Arms (which I suppose lets it make another  lightning attack?).

Also, anybody with LA + high Weapon Skill + Two-Weapon Wielder, since you can make a LA with both weapons…

It seems to me that this rules change was made more out of misguided concern for internal consistency than concern for playability.

While I agree that consistency seems to have been valued too much, there was an issue with melee. As was, with the specialities as written, Assault Marines were just the answer to everything. With 4 attacks from Rank 2 (Lightning Attack + Two Weapon Wielder), the right weapon, and the sheer number of easy bonuses they could murder everything. They could kill big things almost as well as a Devastator with a missile launcher or Lascannon (if armed with something like a power fist, say), totally murder elites (power sword, and burn through their reactions and still keep hitting them), and kill Hordes better than a Heavy Bolter (4 Attacks, Power weapon, and often rolling at 100+ meant a stupid number of hits). Combined with this was the fact that an Assault Marine was as good at shooting as everyone except the Tactical Marine and the Devastator.

The one downside of melee, the fact that you had to spend a lot of time just getting there, was removed by the jump pack. It generally reduced travel time down to a turn, unless you had a REALLY big combat zone (and if that was the case you would probably find everyone except the Devastator is probably going to waste time running about as well).

Now, I personally feel that this problem should have been dealt with in another fashion (reducing how many attacks the Assault Marine had early on, limiting bonuses back to +/-30, giving more reactions to things, giving other specialities earlier access to multiple attacks), but it was an issue, and on top of this is the added problem that with Black Crusade's free advancement choice system the old Swift Attack and Lightning Attacks were no-brainer choices.

The new system now means that you really need to have good WS to make best use of it. Having looked at it, on an "average" player character (say 40-50 in relevant stat) the new system tends to be fairly comparable to the old one on damage dealt. However, as you say, it has a potential of even greater damage, and in the really skilled cases it probably will be more deadly than before. This can be slghtly off-set by the fact that parry is now a skill and so can get much higher than before (though it means unskilled parriers are even worse off than before).

There was also a claim from some that it was to speed up play (reducing dice rolls) but that I personally don't agree with. The old pass/fail system was much easier to adjudicate, rather than fussing around with working out DoS, and in the extreme cases the new system produces more damage dice to roll.

We played Deathwatch with the new system for a little while. At that level it doesn't seem too bad, but personally I prefer the old system.

borithan said:

There is an oft-overlooked rule that may alleviate this issue -- if you look at the Size entry in the combat section, as opposed to the Traits section, you will note that Size gives benefits to BS, not WS. The AM does not get a bonus to hit for Horde Magnitude. Which makes sense, since you are limited to asmall humber of people you can fight in hand to hand at any one time, no matter how large the mob that you are in 100 people or 1000000 people, you can  only reach those in arm's reach.

I think that if you apply this,you will find that the AM gets toned down.

 I actually do not think the makes sense. If you're standing next to a tank it should be easier to punch that tank than a person. If you're fighting close up with a mob of foes, you arguably don't need accuracy - in the press of one versus many, the one will likely glance something just because the many cannot maneuver. When you have 50 gaunts swarming you and nipping at your feet it should be easier to do a scything swing and kill a few then fight with one 1v1. I get what you are saying bogi but it seems to overlook the fact that a horde is effectively one creature as far as the rules are concerned.

Really weapon rules do not need to balance around killing hordes, because hordes are dangerous but generally should be plot-irrelevant. The bigger issue is 1-shotting elites and masters. 

I'm not sure if anyone has suggested this, so I'm going to. A small change to the Storm quality.

Storm: Weapons with the Storm quality can have a number of hits equal to the weapons listed rate of fire plus 2 and spends twice the ammunition.

 This should make sure that any weapon with Storm isn't automatically better than it's non-Storm counter part and prevent it from scaling to an extreme number of hits in a high BS situation.

Kshatriya said:

Well I think that the rules are based around fighting living things that dodge and weave, not tanks. You should automatically hit a tank.

In a melee combat, you are always fighting a small number of foes at any given moment, no matter how many may be a few feet behind them.

I'm ok with the Stormbolter being straight up better then a normal bolter. It's pretty much the upgraded version of the bolter.

I have always thought the Storm Bolter should have been a Heavy weapon, not Basic. 

Unholy_Ravager said:

That's definitely fine.

What is NOT fine is the Storm Bolter being better than a Heavy Bolter.

The wording on my post was off. The intent of the change to to limit the Storm Bolters power in most situations. The key to this is the double scaling from Storm that makes it literally twice as good as the Godwyn-pattern and gives it so many potential hits. I would also change the RoF to S/3/- [or S/2/3 if you use the BC combat rules] to match the Godwyn, but that isn't really necessary if the RoF isn't doubled by Storm.

The suggestion should also help with the Storm Bolter being downright better in all situations than the Meltagun or Plasmagun. There should be niches that these weapons fit into, and not clear tiers of power where one weapon is better than all. Even with these changes the SB might be better than the more specialized weapons simply because of special ammunition.

Someone said "It can still get more shots (and more damage output) than a heavy bolter for equal amounts of DoS required for maximum hits."

I don't think that is right because the Storm Bolter only fires on single and semi (every 2 DoS equals another hit)…not full. Which means he has to get 8 DoS to get the 8 hits he needs. The heavy bolter firing on full auto gets a 1 for 1 DoS and only needs to get 6 in comparison.  Right?