N18 Dual pistols and melee
- Thread starter JawRippa
- Start date
Though this is a very old thread that appears to have been raised from the dead: I'm not really sure what the confusion was to begin with. The wording seems pretty clear that "A" sidearm may only have a single die allocated to it, but that's clearly per sidearm. A second sidearm is a seperate entity, and so can also have a single die assigned to it.
The rules do read "A weapon with the Sidearm trait can only have one Attack dice allocated to it" which simply states something that is true for each weapon with the Sidearm trait. It says nothing about the number of sidearms that can be allocated attack dice during a single close combat attack.
Exactly, if it were worded "A single die may be allocated to a weapon with the Sidearm trait" I might understand the confusion, but the wording of the entry feels as though its quite clear that "A (specific) weapon with the Sidearm trait may only have a single attack die allocated to [this specific weapon with the sidearm trait]" implies that it's talking about a given weapon, not about "sidearms" in general.
There's really nothing there that could imply that two totally separate weapons having the sidearm trait would mean that allocating a die to one means you can't allocate a die to the other. I can't recall any other rule being like that without it being very explicitly stated.
The wording in the "pick weapons" section of the "Close combat" section of the rulebook also has the line: "A fighter can use up to two weapons with the Melee or Sidearm trait [in close combat]", which gives no indication that using two sidearms is considered abnormal at all, or would incur any penalties.
The next sentence is what may have created the confusion: "Any remaining attacks must be allocated to a weapon with the Melee trait. If a fighter has no other weapons with the Melee trait, any remaining attacks must be Unarmed attacks, as described above." This part is badly written for two reasons imo:
- "remaining" after what? As written, it could be understood as immediately after allocating that one Attack dice to a Sidearm weapon (meaning you wouldn't get an opportunity to allocate a second attack die to another Sidearm weapon.)
- it shouldn't matter whether are not the fighter "has" another weapon with the Melee trait, what should matter is whether or not one was selected for that close combat attack. As written, it may seem that a fighter who is equipped with a club and 2 pistols cannot forgo using the club in melee.
"PISTOLS AT CLOSE QUARTERS: A weapon with the Sidearm trait can only have one Attack dice allocated to it. Any remaining attacks must be allocated to a weapon with the Melee trait. If a fighter has no other weapons with the Melee trait, any remaining attacks must be Unarmed attacks, as described above. If a fighter attacks with a weapon with the Sidearm trait in close combat, Accuracy modifiers do not apply – this is only used when making ranged attacks."
The way I interpret this is that:
- A: An individual weapon with the "sidearm" trait may only have one attack die allocated to it.
- B: You can use two sidearms in close combat, each of which is a separate weapon with the "Sidearm" trait, and so each may have ONE die allocated to it.
"Remaining attacks" are those that remain after any possible attack die are assigned to Sidearm weapons, which I take to mean up to two (three if you are purple and have a very furrowed brow). If you don't have a melee weapon then the remaining attacks are just assigned as "unarmed", this is fairly clear.
It is indeed poorly written, it's GW after all, i do think the argument could be made that this implies that you MUST use a melee weapon in CC if you have one equipped, but this is a bit of a separate argument to the original "does each sidearm get an attack die?".
I think it might be the case that the monkey writing this page didnt realise that you are allowed to assign both your CC weapons as sidearms, and also that you can only use two seperate weapons in CC (again, unless you are a gene-sneaker). This part probably wants an FAQ entry.
EDIT: Regarding the last paragraph, if that WERE the case you would assign all remaining attack die to Melee weapons, you don't need to assign any to unarmed if there is an "odd" number, you just choose which melee weapon gets the last die.
The other thing that adds to the confusion is that the words “a” and “one” can be interchanged in English and the understanding of when and why to do this is not widely understood.
You can say “ go and pick up a banana” or “go and pick up one banana” and they mean the same thing in general usage.
It’s why “a weapon with the sidearm trait…” and “one weapon with the sidearm trait…” could mean the same thing.
If you had two bananas and an apple and I said “a piece of fruit with yellow skin may be eaten” you should only eat one banana.
I think I’ve used the banana analogy enough here as while it can explain the confusion it isn’t really any good for trying to explain the game mechanic specifically without coming up with universal fruit traits.
edit: I should add for clarity here that although I was originally on the “only one sidearm” camp I have come around to allowing two sidearms to be used in close combat even though it feels wrong to me. My point above is just being made to explain how people can be easily confused by English word usage.
You can say “ go and pick up a banana” or “go and pick up one banana” and they mean the same thing in general usage.
It’s why “a weapon with the sidearm trait…” and “one weapon with the sidearm trait…” could mean the same thing.
If you had two bananas and an apple and I said “a piece of fruit with yellow skin may be eaten” you should only eat one banana.
I think I’ve used the banana analogy enough here as while it can explain the confusion it isn’t really any good for trying to explain the game mechanic specifically without coming up with universal fruit traits.
edit: I should add for clarity here that although I was originally on the “only one sidearm” camp I have come around to allowing two sidearms to be used in close combat even though it feels wrong to me. My point above is just being made to explain how people can be easily confused by English word usage.
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This isnt the case. "A" and "One" aren't strictly interchangeable. "A" is also interchangeable with "Any", as well as many other words, dependent on context.
"A" is not used to mean "One" in the close combat rules, as an example, the following sentence: "A fighter can use up to two weapons with the Melee or Sidearm trait, but only one if it also has the Unwieldy trait.". This doesn't mean that only one fighter can use two weapons, but that any given fighter may use two weapons.
"A fighter can use up to two weapons with the Melee or Sidearm trait, but only one if it also has the Unwieldy trait." along with "Dual Weapons with the Melee or Sidearm trait (+1)" clearly imply that you can use two melee, two sidearms, or one sidearm and one melee weapon in close combat. There is no language that I can see that implies you may only use a single sidearm in close combat, nor that if you do use two that only one may have attack die assigned to it.
I really think that it's fairly clear that you may use multiple sidearms in CC, and each one used may have a single die assigned to it. There's no particularly logical reason you should gain an extra attack for having a second pistol in your hand... but then being unable to use the pistol that grants the attack to actually perform the attack that is granted.
Also: As an aside: “a piece of fruit with yellow skin may be eaten” can just as well be interpreted as meaning you may eat any number of fruit, as long as they have yellow skin.
I’m going to start this off again by saying that I currently lean towards allowing two pistols be used in close combat, even though it is not how I originally read it nor do I believe it is as clear cut as some people think it is.
In short this is a long winded agreement with an argument or a discussion on semantics.
Agreed. I simply stated that they CAN be interchanged, not that they should always be used interchangeably.
That said I don’t think any is used interchangeably as often as one is, and even then the words one and any won’t contradict in most uses.
The word any also has significantly wider tolerances than the word a as any can be applied in both singular and plural while a is specifically singular.
This is one of the grey areas in this debate.
As for your example the close combat rules are only ever talking about one fighter. They could interchange the word “a” with “the” or “the attacking fighter” if they wanted to be specific (but that is already stated in the preceding sentence in that rule) and it would not impact on that sentence. You could still replace the word “a” with the word “one” in that instance and the rule would still work because it is only ever talking about one attacking fighter, though it would be rather clunky.
“a fighter can use up to two weapons with the melee or sidearm traits” does not universally allow you to use two weapons with the sidearm trait. It simply allows you to use up to two if there are no other rules that conflict with it. In fact a rule that does not allow for the use of two sidearm weapons would not contradict this sentence, but simply add another limiting factor to it.
The sentence also allows for a number of other combinations of weapons in a single sentence without having to explicitly list them all, such as no weapons, one melee weapon, two melee weapons, one melee weapon and one sidearm, one sidearm, or two sidearms.
The other sentence “dual weapons with the melee or sidearm trait (+1)” falls in the same bucket. It allows for a lot of options simply, but those options may be restricted by other rules.
In fact there is a specific rule in each rulebook titled “Pistols at Close Quarters” that gives further instructions on how to treat weapons with the Sidearm trait, and that rule is the one that can be interpreted to restrict, not contradict, the general combat rules. It does not contradict the previous rules because if you do restrict fighters to using a single weapon with the Sidearm trait all the previous sentences still work in plain English in all other non-restricted scenarios.
The specific part of that rule that really causes issues is the second sentence that reads “any remaining attacks must be allocated to a weapon with the Melee trait, if the fighter has no other weapons with the Melee trait, any remaining attacks must be Unarmed attacks, as described above”.
What people miss (and I did on first reading) is that the first sentence must be implemented fully before reading the rest of the paragraph. “A weapon (in this instance each or any weapon) with the Sidearm trait can only have one Attack dice allocated to it”.
Again this just comes down to interpretation of the rules. Most rules are abstracts meant to represent real life so trying to implement “real life logic” into them doesn’t always work and shouldn’t be used as the basis for a rules debate. Rather the internal logic of the rulebook needs to be used to try an interptret how they have abstracted “real life logic”.
I’m afraid you are wrong here. Piece of fruit is singular so you would still be restricted to a single banana regardless of the use of “a” or “any” in that sentence. If I had used the plural, pieces of fruit, instead you would be allowed to eat more than one.
There is also an interesting effect if you change the word “may” to “must” in both instances. Consider the following sentences:
Anyway English is a strange language with lots of oddities and ambiguities in it.
In short this is a long winded agreement with an argument or a discussion on semantics.
Agreed. I simply stated that they CAN be interchanged, not that they should always be used interchangeably.
That said I don’t think any is used interchangeably as often as one is, and even then the words one and any won’t contradict in most uses.
The word any also has significantly wider tolerances than the word a as any can be applied in both singular and plural while a is specifically singular.
This is one of the grey areas in this debate.
As for your example the close combat rules are only ever talking about one fighter. They could interchange the word “a” with “the” or “the attacking fighter” if they wanted to be specific (but that is already stated in the preceding sentence in that rule) and it would not impact on that sentence. You could still replace the word “a” with the word “one” in that instance and the rule would still work because it is only ever talking about one attacking fighter, though it would be rather clunky.
“a fighter can use up to two weapons with the melee or sidearm traits” does not universally allow you to use two weapons with the sidearm trait. It simply allows you to use up to two if there are no other rules that conflict with it. In fact a rule that does not allow for the use of two sidearm weapons would not contradict this sentence, but simply add another limiting factor to it.
The sentence also allows for a number of other combinations of weapons in a single sentence without having to explicitly list them all, such as no weapons, one melee weapon, two melee weapons, one melee weapon and one sidearm, one sidearm, or two sidearms.
The other sentence “dual weapons with the melee or sidearm trait (+1)” falls in the same bucket. It allows for a lot of options simply, but those options may be restricted by other rules.
In fact there is a specific rule in each rulebook titled “Pistols at Close Quarters” that gives further instructions on how to treat weapons with the Sidearm trait, and that rule is the one that can be interpreted to restrict, not contradict, the general combat rules. It does not contradict the previous rules because if you do restrict fighters to using a single weapon with the Sidearm trait all the previous sentences still work in plain English in all other non-restricted scenarios.
The specific part of that rule that really causes issues is the second sentence that reads “any remaining attacks must be allocated to a weapon with the Melee trait, if the fighter has no other weapons with the Melee trait, any remaining attacks must be Unarmed attacks, as described above”.
What people miss (and I did on first reading) is that the first sentence must be implemented fully before reading the rest of the paragraph. “A weapon (in this instance each or any weapon) with the Sidearm trait can only have one Attack dice allocated to it”.
Again this just comes down to interpretation of the rules. Most rules are abstracts meant to represent real life so trying to implement “real life logic” into them doesn’t always work and shouldn’t be used as the basis for a rules debate. Rather the internal logic of the rulebook needs to be used to try an interptret how they have abstracted “real life logic”.
I’m afraid you are wrong here. Piece of fruit is singular so you would still be restricted to a single banana regardless of the use of “a” or “any” in that sentence. If I had used the plural, pieces of fruit, instead you would be allowed to eat more than one.
There is also an interesting effect if you change the word “may” to “must” in both instances. Consider the following sentences:
- A piece of fruit may be eaten.
- Any pieces of fruit may be eaten.
- A piece of fruit must be eaten.
- Any pieces of fruit must be eaten.
Anyway English is a strange language with lots of oddities and ambiguities in it.
if you have paired weapons and another melee weapon would that work i ask since see the 8 fold lord has 3 melee weapons tech and wondering if i do that with my hq what happens
A Corpse Grinder player in my current campaign is using Eightfold Harvest Lord, and the same question arise. We came to the conclusion the knife is there because the model has it, but makes no sense to use along with paired weapons. First, because using paired weapons shouldn´t leave place to use another weapon unless you had a third arm (GSC say hello). But also because following the rules, it would be worse for the Corpse Grinder player because he should have to split the attacks as even as he can between paired weapons (better) and knife (worse). Our take though, maybe there is another RAW interpretation.
Making use of the threadomancy, I have a related question about Enforcers and the use of dual pistols. Could a subjugator with vigilance shield and 2 pistols use the pistols for attacking and the vigilance shield for reaction attacks defense?
I would have to go and dig out the Book of Ruin to confirm this specifically with the 8 fold harvest lord but it is technically possible to use paired weapons and a second (and yes it is only a second) weapon.
The only rule that stops you from wielding a Paired weapon and a second weapon is if the Paired weapon has the unwieldy trait.
What you do need to be aware of though is that adding another weapon to a Paired weapon doesn’t give you any extra attacks and is likely detrimental to your fighters actual combat ability unless your second weapon is significantly better than the Paired weapon.
The reason for this is that close combat only gives you a bonus +1 to attacks for having “dual weapons with the melee or sidearm trait” and the Paired weapon already does that as well as double the number of attacks you get on the charge. There is no bonus for having a third weapon in close combat.
Even worse is that if you do decide to use the second weapon then as per the rules the attack dice need to be split evenly between the two weapons, so half of your attacks go to the Paired weapon and the other half go to the third weapon.
This same issue pops up on Goliath Stimmers who are able to take paired spud jackets and paired pulverisers which both take up two weapon slots but don’t have the Unwieldy trait so can be used with a plasma pistol in combat.
Edited so I don’t double post.
The shield gives the defensive bonuses from the Energy Shield trait regardless of if you attacked with it or not.
You don’t have to declare that you are holding the shield and I stop before you are shot at, why would you have to do so before someone hits you with a club?
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