SgtColbert42 said:

It's usually a month or two between the book release and the PDF release, so I'd say end of January, probably around the same time as Only War.

Available now on DriveThru and I'll be getting it later today - my early Christmas present to me

DW

Does the berserkers seem like a good class to you guys.  I am not sure he is worth the experience points, his special abilities require the expanture of a fate point and only last one round, what do you guys think?

What are the Legacy weapon rules like?

@Haroon

The abilities seem fine to me. Avatars of Slaughter means you'll likely get that single round of running that you need to close to melee, which will be the point where the Berzerker is most vulnerable. I know we've had that little problem in a Imperial Guard game (DH rules) - one feral world guardsman mistakes himself for a Khornate, charges from cover and tries to cross two rounds worth of featureless no-mans-land while under fire. Suffice to say that Fate Points were burned.

With the trait and some enhancements, however… hoo, boy.

-Run for a -20 penalty to ranged attacks
-Hard Target for another -20
-Avatars of Slaughter for yet another -20

Combine that with Sprint and by the end of your second turn you can be in melee with an enemy 72 metres away from where you started, assuming a 4 AB. Add on Preternatural Speed (and the necessary 50 agility) and you upgrade that distance to 108 metres.

In many cases, Avatars of Slaughter is overkill considering the -40 you already get with Hard Target. But then again, when you go up against your first Tau regiment, you'll thank Khorne for it. Essentially, the trait mitigates your one worst weakness.

Unstoppable Wrath, on the other hand, is just overkill. The opposed strength test to negate a Parry is nice enough against Eldar and the like (and read technically, without a successful parry, your chain axe is safe against that pesky Power Field as well!), but the second use is the more powerful here: Once per combat, you can ignore a Critical result of Death. Others have to burn Infamy for this, you just spend a single point. Can I get a "Hell, yeah!" please?

@OJTheJuice

They're pretty nice. Essentially, your signature weapon "levels" with you (measured by infamy and corruption). The more powerful the weapon already is (measured by traits like melta, felling, warp weapon and the like), the harder it gets to turn it into a legacy weapon and daemon weapons are right out, although it is possible to turn a legacy weapon into a daemon weapon (though that makes it even harder to control).
Legacy weapons evolve their own traits, which are a little like the daemon weapon traits.

The negative here is that the character must rely on that weapon and that weapon only. Whenever you use another weapon, there's a chance you lose the legacy weapon traits and have to work to reacquire them, although it's acceptable to dual-wield the legacy weapon with a regular one.

They're divided in to melee and ranged though. So if you have a Legacy melee weapon, you won't get dinged if you shoot at something. Though the GM is encouraged to levy penalties or bonuses to the roll, depending on extremely mitigating circumstances (like your Legacy weapon can't hurt the target, you don't have it, etc.).

I can honestly see the Legacy Weapon rules being of popular use in the other games, no matter what people feel about crossover. Because of what it says right in the book, about how one of the great things about them is you're not always running around, trading up for the next better weapon to come along. Though obviously it would need some/alot of house ruling, to work in a way that wasn't inherintly Chaotic.

And as for Malal, wasn't the Dreadaxe one of his daemon weapons, way back?

Blood Pact said:

Maybe way way back 20 plus years ago, yes, but Malal no longer exists in 40k canon for legal reasons.

Something that I really don't like about Legacy Weapons is them only reducing the sundering chance from power weapons to 10% instead of eliminating it outright. 10% still means that after about ten parries from either side, the weapon is destroyed and you have to reforge it, which likely isn't possible during the mission. The alternative is to switch to a weapon that can't be sundered, though that may destroy your connection to the legacy weapon as well. Either way, if you're up against an enemy with a power weapon, you're pretty much screwed.

The funny thing is that this applies to exactly those who use the Legacy Weapons as intended: Martial champions (likely aligned to Khorne, so Parry rather than Dodge) who prefer their old faithful low-tech weapons (aka chainaxes) to the newest nifty toy.

You could always install a power field on your weapon if you are concerned. Could make it an epic upgrade quest of doom. Or you could spend one of your starting acquisitions on a power weapon and then elevate it.

The part that irritates me, and is getting house ruled, is that, in the system that finally gave us the sidearm talent, and in the universe that makes the sword and pistol pretty iconic, legacy weapon sets can not be a one handed ranged weapon paired with a one handed melee weapon… makes no sense at all to me, and as I said in my games I'm house ruling it.

It seems to me that it's because Legacy weapons are quite powerful, and outside of a matched set you can only have one at a time, ever.

A sword and pistol, no matter how thematic for 40K, is not a matched set.

You could always install a power field on your weapon if you are concerned. Could make it an epic upgrade quest of doom. Or you could spend one of your starting acquisitions on a power weapon and then elevate it.

Yup. But then we wouldn't have the iconic Khorne Berzerker who likes his chain axe much better than any fancy-shmancy power weapon. As I said, the point of a legacy weapon is to keep a low-level weapon competitive during the later stages of the game.

The part that irritates me, and is getting house ruled, is that, in the system that finally gave us the sidearm talent, and in the universe that makes the sword and pistol pretty iconic, legacy weapon sets can not be a one handed ranged weapon paired with a one handed melee weapon… makes no sense at all to me, and as I said in my games I'm house ruling it.

Agreed. Sword&pistol is quite iconic to 40k, especially for the kind of characters that are embodied by PCs. I previously thought that the "Legacy Weapons and Two Weapon Wielding" box would make exactly this possible, but you're right that it says both weapons have to come from the same category. Duly noted and ignored.

For those of you worried about Legacy Weapons without power fields breaking, there's always the option to get the 'shattering' option under Bellicose.

Or the alternative is to not worry about what is otherwise a minor mechanical crunch issue and concentrate on what Legacy Weapons are meant to be and what they represent to your character.

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

This is a roleplaying game. Ignoring minor mechanical crunch issues is pretty unlikely to happen because that would be entirely too reasonable of an approach. Instead we should expect to see a cyber-hemorrhoidal flare-up of 11th-degree butthurt!

But we can hope for better…