40K: One Bolter Down, Two More To Go
Games Workshop improved the Stalker Bolt Rifle – let’s hope more bolter changes are coming soon.
Waaaaay back in January GW released a rules beta for the Bolter. That eventually became a thing with the new Bolter Discipline Rule:
With this change, there was a new King of the Bolters for the Primaris Marines and it was the Bolt Rifle:
With Vigilius Defiant and the Bolter Beta Rule, there was suddenly a very clear choice for which Bolter option you should equip your Primaris Marines with. In response to this change, we noted this fact and even wrote up some ideas to help the OTHER bolter options fill a different role without overshadowing or overpowering the Bolt Rifle. The idea was not to make a clear choice, but to provide the player with viable choices to make their army play how they wanted to.
Apparently, GW agreed.
If you didn’t see the changes from the Space Marine announcements, the Stalker Bolt Rifle just got a nice tweak to make it viable:
They upped the damage stat to 2 – which was our suggestion back in January. When you combined this change with Vigilus Defiant, you really got good choice that helped this option fill a different role than the Bolt Rifle. This also makes the gun different than the options in Vanguard Supplement, too. That’s a good move on GW’s part.
But there is still work to be done! There is still the problem for the Auto Bolt Rifles and the Bolt Carbine. Not only do BOTH of these guns have the exact same profile neither stands out from the Bolt Rifle in a meaningful way. This is less of a problem for the Bolt Carbine which doesn’t necessarily compete for the Bolt Rifle’s spot (it’s not available to Intercessors for example) – but it’s still a problem that they both have the same stat line.
Our fix for the Auto Bolt Rifle really comes down to one of two options:
- Increase the Rate of Fire to Assault 3
-OR-
- Increase the To-Hit by 1
The reasoning for the first option is to keep the weapon’s firepower consistent across the range of the weapon. By selecting the Auto Bolt Rifle, you’re ensuring you have 30 shots all the time, even on the move, with a 10-man Intercessor squad vs the 20 or 40 shots the Bolt Rifle gets depending on the other factors. Or you give it a +1 to hit making the gun a bit more accurate. This would mean if the squad didn’t move, it’s hitting on 2s and if it did move, it’s hitting on 3s – effectively reducing the penalty for firing Assault weapons after advancing.
Now, I think the Bolt Rifle might still win out overall as 40 shots with -1 AP is pretty hard for the Auto Bolt Rifle to compete with. But 30 shots all the time or a +1 to hit might improve the Auto Bolt Rifle’s odds of actually getting picked over the Bolt Rifle.
Additionally, either of these small tweaks does make the Auto Bolt Rifle different from the Bolter Carbine – so there is that, too.
Will Games Workshop go so far as to make the Auto Bolt Rifle actually viable with the next Space Marine Codex? We hope so! It’s not fun to have options that aren’t viable to use in your codexes. But hey, GW already announced one fix for the Stalker Bolt Rifle, perhaps there are more tweaks on the way.
Don’t even get me started about their Bolters…
What do you think? Should GW improve the Auto Bolt Rifle so that it’s at least on par with the other options like the Bolt Rifle or the Stalker Bolt Rifle? Let us know in the comments!
