Wargear & Equipment
Everything you carry is a record you can open — weapons, armour, and gear each list their own numbers. This chapter explains what those numbers do.
Reading a weapon
Damage is the base number before anything is rolled. For melee weapons you add your Strength to it.
ED — Extra Damage Dice are rolled after a hit and converted like any other dice: 4–5 is 1 damage, a 6 is 2. A weapon listed as "10 + 1 ED" does 10, plus whatever that one die contributes. Shifting Exalted Icons adds more ED dice, which is why a good attack roll makes a real difference to damage.
AP — Armour Penetration comes off the target's Resilience, not their Armour Rating. This is the single most commonly misplayed number in the game. AP is written as zero or a negative number; the corebook prints "–" for none.
Range works in bands, and every distance in this game is in metres — Speed, weapon ranges, blast radii, all of it. There is no grid and nothing to measure; you and the GM agree roughly where things are, and the GM tells you which band you're in.
Short Range gives you +1 bonus die. Beyond Medium, the target gains +2 Defence. Beyond Long, you simply miss — the shot isn't possible.
This project uses the corebook's optional realistic ranges, so a gun reaches about as far as it really would: a Lasgun's bands are 120, 240 and 360 metres rather than the tabletop-scaled 12, 24 and 36. The numbers on each weapon record are already the ones in play — nothing needs multiplying.
The practical effect is that indoors, your gun outranges the room. In a hab block or a transit tunnel almost everything is inside Short Range, so that +1 bonus die is the ordinary case rather than a prize. Range starts to matter when you get out into the open — a manufactorum floor, a thoroughfare, anywhere with a long sightline — and that is also where a rifle starts to beat a pistol.
Salvo is how many shots the weapon has before it needs reloading, and it gates the Full Auto and Spray Shot options. A weapon with Salvo "–" reloads after every shot.
Your equipped weapon
One weapon at a time is equipped — the one actually in your hands, as opposed to the ones riding in your pack. Set it on your sheet and the Attack block resolves the whole line for you: which Skill to roll, your base dice pool, damage with Strength already added if it's a melee weapon, its ED, its AP, and its three range bands in metres.
That block is what you and the GM should both be reading when a fight starts. You still add situational dice on top — Short Range, Aiming, an ability — but the arithmetic underneath is done.
Carrying a weapon in your inventory does not equip it. Swapping to a different one is a Simple Action in play, and a change to that field on your sheet.
Armour
Armour Rating adds to your Resilience while worn. Carrying armour in your inventory does nothing — it has to be the armour you're actually wearing, and your sheet tracks that separately from the rest of your kit.
An Armour Rating printed with an asterisk is Invulnerable: AP doesn't reduce it. Those are rare and worth having.
Traits
Most weapons and armour carry Traits — short keywords like Rapid Fire, Reliable, Brutal, Bulk. A Trait is a rule, and some of them are significant enough to change how you fight.
You do not have to look these up. Every Trait on your equipped gear is resolved onto your character sheet, with its full effect, in the Wargear Traits block. Read that block before a fight rather than mid-attack.
If a Trait there ever reads NOT DEFINED, tell your GM — the definition is missing, and neither of you should guess at it. Every definition lives in @Missing file.
Ammo
Ammo is abstract. Ordinary shooting doesn't consume it; you can keep firing indefinitely under normal circumstances. You spend it when you Reload (a Simple Action), and you can lose it to a Complication.
You start play with your weapons loaded and 3 points of Ammo. Grenades and other single-use thrown weapons cost 1 Ammo per throw rather than reloading.
Upgrading what you have
A weapon takes up to three upgrades, one of each type — no two grips, no two scopes. Distinction is the only one that does not count against the three.
Each upgrade is Wargear in its own right: it has a Value and a Rarity, and you requisition it like anything else. Several only fit certain weapons — Pistols only, Las weapons only, nothing Heavy — and that restriction is the first line of the upgrade's record. Read it before you spend the roll. The full list is in Equipment/Weapon Upgrades/; the rule is Weapon Upgrades.
Getting more
Wealth covers what you can lay hands on materially — supplies, bribes, replacement kit. Influence covers what your name is worth when you need someone to act. Both are on your sheet; both are real numbers with a real procedure behind them.
You are not shopping. You are requisitioning, and it works like this:
- You must share at least one Keyword with the item. No shared Keyword, no attempt — the Departmento Munitorum does not issue Astartes wargear to a ganger. Every Keyword you share beyond the first is +1 bonus die.
- Roll Influence against a DN of the item's Value, plus a penalty for its Rarity — Common +0, Uncommon +1, Rare +2, Very Rare +3, Unique +4. Both numbers are printed on the item's own record, so you can work out the DN before you ask.
- Fail, and you may spend Wealth to buy the Icons you're short — 1 Wealth per Icon, gone permanently.
- Complication, and you lose 1 Wealth whether you got the item or not.
Once per session for wargear, once per session for ammunition. That is the real constraint, and it is why the group should decide together who spends their roll on what.
Your GM may raise or lower an item's Rarity for where you are — plasma is easier to come by on a Forge World, and Imperial gear can be simply unavailable outside Imperial space. Roleplaying the negotiation can move the DN or skip the Test entirely; that is your GM's call, not a rule you can invoke.
Permanent gains and losses land in Wealth ± and Influence ± on your sheet, so the numbers stay honest between sessions. The full rule is in Requisitioning Wargear, and Repairing Wargear covers fixing what you already own.