Boltguns | Warhammer 40,000



Across the vast arsenal of the Emperor’s Orchestra, one instrument might forever be heard above all others: The Boltgun.

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Background music “Dreamcatcher” by Tenacious Orchestra. Used under license from Shutterstock.com

Ending music “Battle Forever” used under license from Shutterstock.com.

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32 thoughts on “Boltguns | Warhammer 40,000”

  1. And remember, Lasgun that everyone called as Flaslight, the most used gun in 40k, is no recoil and have infinite ammo, Single Lasgun shot to human body is capable of blow up the limb and pierce a human body and even some can destroyed and melt the metal or aluminium in single, Lasgun can shot unlimited.. If everyone compare this to blaster.. No they dead absolutely wrong.. Single Lasgun shot that used by Quintillion Guardsman can blow up your limb and effectively killed you, even with proper armor because Lasgun is absolutely OP, Everything of Minor Xenos or Rebellion world where they gun isn't pattern as Lasgun have been killed and annihilated instantly
    . 40k Fans always regarded and meme it as Flashlight for weapon because how Bonkers Majority of Imperial Weapon and even All Faction Overpowered is,

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  2. "A new sound tore through the antechamber, one entirely different from the shriek of gauss weaponry or the snap of particle beams. This was a chattering, a hammering, industrial and violent. The sound of mechanised brutality that could only come from one species. It was the sound of heavy bolters." — Part Four, Chapter Four, The Infinite and the Divine; The Serenade War

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  3. The Boltgun and Airpower made all the difference during the Unification Wars because those were the only real advantages the Imperium had over the technobarberians prior to the development of the Space Marines. As many of the technobarberians had both power armour and mutants which the Thunder Warriors often struggled to defeat quickly were it not for bolters and superior airpower giving the decisive advantage.

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  4. Boltguns were a lot like marines. They're S4, range comparable to other infantry firearms. Like other high-strength weapons it would lower armour saves, even -1 to your saves count. A bolter could blow up a light vehicle.

    Other enemies might be equal to a marine in one or more aspects, but marines are good at all their things. The bolter is made the same way, good compared to mostly all other basic infantry weapons with no negative tradeoff.

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  5. We have a newish weapon called the XM109. It's built up the .50 cal anti-material rifle used by the US and can fire both that bullet and a 25mm grenade. I mention this because it gives us an idea of how a bolter could actually work in real life, since logically its use is a huge waste of ammunition when Astartes could use far smaller rounds for far larger magazine capacity with their extreme precision and reflexes. We know bolters are actually highly advanced, not merely slabs of shaped metal that fling bullets. So, it seems likely that they can program ammunition, especially since we know they can connect to a Marine's nervous system through his armor. A real life bolter used by a real Space Marine would probably rarely actually hit an opponent and normally detonate near soft targets to cripple or kill several at once per shot, especially those in cover (which it can also penetrate and detonate on the other side of or turn into essetially a fragmentation grenade by detonating inside it). Against more durable but otherwise infantry level targets they could use bolts loaded with flechettes. And against hard targets/powered armor they could use kraken bolts, vengeance bolts, etc. And when there are only a few, spread out targets, they could conserve ammunition by simply letting the Guardsmen with them deal with it. Which is another thing: Space Marines don't have to kill everything nor outright win. They function as part of a larger, combined arms military. It is sufficient for them to neutralize enemy positions even if they don't kill anyone. Or destroy an enemy anti-armor weapon so a vehicle can move up and destroy the position. Additionally, Space Marine scale bolters are also effective against light vehicles and simply crippling them and their weapons is good enough and likely cost far fewer bolts.

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  6. I always found it amusing that the Bolter is loosely based upon a real-world rocket propelled munition; one that never made it to mass production due to how unreliable and inaccurate it was. We really should be hitting on 5's and 6's with these things when on the tabletop.

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