Shadow War Armageddon General /swag/

Archons are a reasonable special operative edition

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>Shadow War: Armageddon Free Faction Rules::
games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/ShadowWar/SWA_Killteams_ENG.pdf

>Rules Archive:
mega.nz/#F!mUtQAAxS!1fjZcUJ94veAvCRBREeifw

>77 pages of rule: some pages missing bottom part, check archive.
docs.google.com/document/d/1xvgryrNiMFoLYiaX8o6Y-Q0q1GLRvwWnvbrSL7omZXo/edit?usp=sharing

post stuff you'dd like to see added to your faction

IG : ratlings , heavy weapon's teams , a psyker

Lictors

Heavy Weapons guys, not teams.

I have a missile launcher woman I want to use in my team. Instead I have to use the superior plasma gunners.

Ive been going strong with my warriors for about 7 games now, only suffering 1 failed bottle test, and 3 casualties (that all immediately returned the next game).

The first 2 games are crucial and up to chance in your advancement. You need to win and get multiple caches to stay in the top running, as you MUST spend your first 2 caches recruiting and rearming. Once you get all 5 models, and some upgrades out, you begin to wipe the field through most missions.

Bad matchups are against skitarii with multiple snipers, grey knights, and anyone that can easily cause multiple wounds repeatedly.

Worst matchup has got to be against grey knights; once they have psybolt ammo, Psycannons, force weapons, and especially a Paladin on the field, the best scenario for you it to throw your weakest mook in their lines and wait for him to go down so you can choose to bottle out. 50% of the time he will be fine when you bottle, and you don't suffer massive casualties. Even better when they spend a cache to bring a paladin or something, as there's a 66% chance that you tie in the end, and only a 33% chance that they come out 1 cache ahead.

My ideal starting lineup and advancement goes like this:
>start
Alpha, gunbeast, gunbeast, new-blood, all with talons and carapace except for the mook.
>game 1
Purchase a new-blood with 2 talons and no carapace, if leader survives, try to skill up on guerilla
>game 2
Upgrade mooks to have carapace, give a venom cannon to a gunbeast, skill up shooting on that gunbeast if able
>game 3
Either second venom cannon on the second gunbeast or boneswords on the alpha.

If you're lucky enough to get extra points from the guerilla skills, or from hunt in the prometheum sprawl, get adrenal glands and flesh hooks on everyone.

Rending claws are a trap unless you can buy 2 pairs at once. You already have -2 armor, reroll to wound AND a +1 to WS which gets you more hits.

Chaos Sorcerer with access to at least six choices in powers.

Anyone feel like sharing their Tau lists? Would like to see some before throwing mine together

I'm interested in any feedback to this too since this is almost exactly the list I was going to put together.

Shasui with marker light, carbine

All 3 drones.

2 guys with rail rifles

3 cadets with carbine.

I should probably drop the grav drone for gear for my rifle guys.

kabalite warriors

Super new to this war gaming stuff but my friend said I would like painting this faction so I went in on it but I have no idea how to build the list.

I have the rules but can't make heads or tails of the profile stuff.

Mostly this.

I love the paint!

Not my factions really, but I'd love to see them add a Kroot and a Kabalite Warriors Kill-teams.

Kroot would be hard to give a Specialist, but maybe they could add in Kroot Hounds as it's own entry? And then could just take Tau or Vespid units for Special Operatives.

Kabalite Warriors would be easy enough, and for Special Operatives could take the same as Wyches (Skitarii and Guard both have access to identical Tech-Priests, so should be okay), but could possibly replace one with, or add, Mandrakes.

Chaos: Sonic Weapons/Better mark for Mark of Slaanesh, Something for Mark of Khorne

Space Marines: Death Watch, Iron Hands

Battle Sisters: Anything

Considering a Skitari Squad for the LGS's thing, any tips on the wargear for them?

How's this for a GSC list? I feel like I lack bodies, so I'm considering getting rid the blasting charges and some upgrades and getting another dude.

LEADER - 245 pts.
Power Pick - 50pts.
Web Pistol - 75pts.
HEAVY - 210pts.
Heavy Stubber - 120pts.
Clip Harness - 10pts.
Red Dot Laser Sight - 10pts
HEAVY - 195pts.
Grenade Launcher - 125pts
-Krak and Frag Grenades
INITIATE - 110pts.
Autogun - 20pts
Blasting Charges - 40pts
HYBRID - 80pts.
Autogun - 20pts
HYBRID - 80pts.
Autogun - 20pts
HYBRID - 80pts.
Autogun - 20pts

I think A-Mil should've been all Tempestus.

Although the 'force DBNO reroll' thing is cute. Almost wants me to burn promethium whenever I fight Necrons.

The issue with kroot is the bastards only have about 5 weapons on their sprue. The rifle, a pistol, some knives, meathooks, and grenades. And gw doesnt seem keen on including options that there aren't bits for.

Can a fighter fumble on one dice?

I just came here to brag that I finally got confirmation that my copy of the game is shipping.

Eldar: Actual infiltration specialists

Tyranids: Lictor Special Operative, some more wounds for the Ravener.

Necrons: Scarabs, a complete rethink

Orks: Burnas, maybe a Rokkit Lawnchair

Deathwatch

Tau: Alt-Fire mode for Ion Rifle, Kroot Spec Op if not a Kroot Kill Team outright.

Inquisition: A way of getting your Scions/Stormtrooper Killteam by another means.

Harlequins: Some clarification on whether Charging retains their -2 to hit penalty they get from Running.

Squats

Skitarrii: Buff Radium Rifles as of right now there's no reason to take them over Galv

OR they could go Kroot Mercenaries kill team
then they would have a good amount of options.

damn I miss my Kroot Mercenaries. . .

Yes

Feels like a lot on the leader, I'd go with one or the other when it comes to web pistol or power pick.

Heavy guys are good.

Blasting charges are good. Maybe bring more of those and think about an autopistol or two for close combat/melee capabilities.

I use Tempestus models as the Veteran Guardsmen myself, just give them carapace and hotshot lasguns.

I'm starting to feel that Guard have been done over. Orks, Necrons, Space Marines, Halequins, Genestealer Cult, Tau. They all look superior. It looks like the only way for guard to fight against them is by spamming as much sustained fire plasma as they can.

Yeah, hotshot lasguns really suck. -3 or even -2 rend would've been nice.

My current Skitari List
SKITARII RANGER ALPHA 150 (210)
- Galvanic Rifle 35
- Red Dot Laser 10
- Photo Visor 15

SKITARII RANGER 80 (140)
- Galvanic Rifle 35
- Red Dot Laser 10
- Photo Visor 15

SKITARII RANGER 80 (140)
- Galvanic Rifle 35
- Red Dot Laser 10
- Photo Visor 15

SKITARII RANGER 80 (140)
- Galvanic Rifle 35
- Red Dot Laser 10
- Photo Visor 15

SKITARII Specialist 90 (295)
- Transuranic Arabesque 180
- Red Dot Laser 10
- Photo Visor 15

No idea what to do with the other points, how's this 1000 point Skitari thing?

I'm currently using toxic sniper, heavy flamer and K/F GL.
Should I switch out one of those for plasma?

Just acquired guardians and aspect warriors on the eBay. What lists would you suggest?

I was fooling around with it last night, but couldn't settle on something. I'm very tempted to say fuck toyz vs boyz and start with a Brightlance. I'd rather not spend the money later (which requires either the skill AND a cache for 250 or a lucky roll on the subplot.

Going with the Exarch, two specs, and a Brightlance leaves me with low models at the start, but I'll get more easily enough. I'm confident in my understand of the Hide action and SWA tactics to make it work, though I'm not terribly concerned anyways.

The better question is: is the Brightlance even worth it?

Pathfinder kill team v7.1

Shas'ui Kio'tor [Leader: 140]
+Carbine [30]
(180)

Shas'la Ra'vaal [Trooper: 60]
+Carbine [30]
+Marker Light [15]
(105)

Shas'la Su'tra [Recruit: 50]
+Carbine [30]
+Marker Light [15]
(95)

Shas'la Qior'tan [Recruit: 50]
+Carbine [30]
(80)

Shas'la Pa'nam [Recruit: 50]
+Carbine [30]
(80)

Shas'la En'kal [Specialist: 60]
+Ion Rifle [120]
(180)

Shas'la Xa'kal [Specialist: 60]
+Rail Rifle [120]
(180)

MB-3 "b1G'B3rtHa" [Recon Drone: 110]

An Orc is in combat with a Tyranid, and successfully puts it DBNO, but is wounded in turn by acid blood and goes down himself.

Are any curbstomps resolved or do they both just crawl around next to eachother until the luckier one gets back up and puts in the boot?

How should i run Iron Hands marines in this game?

nid goes OoA because the close combat is resolved before acid blood wounds are resolved

Scouts with shotguns or bolters, maybe a heavy bolter or missile launcher. An aggressive Scout force since IH seem quite aggressive.

Necrons:

Scarab swarms, as a "max three" like Tau drones. They come in the Warriors box for fuck's sake GW.

Lord as leader, instead of "just another immortal that doesn't get anything unique or better". Give him a personal upgrade section, containing res orb, warscythe, etc. Invent new kill team rules for those like they did for mindshackle and shadowlooom.

Wraith as a special operative choice.

More interesting distinction between Tesla and Gauss for immortals.

Yeah I reckon you should. Probably the sniper as you can't move and shoot with it, and it's not AOE or highly damaging like the GL or Flamer.

Maybe "Barons" instead of Lords?

>Physical rules release confirmed
this makes me incredibly happy

I'm sure there's various Necron nobility names in the fluff, yeah.

But only the nobility retained their intelligence, so only they could lead a military force. It's plausible a given Lord could see reasons to personally lead a small force for a specific objective rather than launching an all-out assault; they're shrewd, eccentric, immortal, squabbling nobility after all. Also, Lords function as our squad leaders on the table top, so they should here as well. Their statline is a bit better than the curve, but that can be easily compensated for by keeping their weapons in check. Don't let the warscythe ball too hard (maybe give it an affect that reduces you to a single attack?), keep the staff of light reasonable, and don't make the resurrection orb and other wargear toys too strong and it won't matter.

>Squats
I would kill for this. I started running Squats in HoR and now I'm sad they aren't in anything else. And I don't know enough about this game to try and make a balanced roster for them.

Helpful post!

I played my first games on saturday and by coincidence my starting build was identical to yours.

Questions, though:

Why do you say not to buy the recruited Newspawn a carapace? You'd be working with 200 points, which is the price of a Newspawn + talons + carapace. Are you spending those 15 points on some other upgrade for an OG member of the team?

How strongly do you feel about going straight for the VC, as opposed to buying a Deathspitter for each Gunbeast? I feel like the extra pinning of 2x Deathspitters might be more useful in the early campaign.

You don't feel shooting skills are too much of a gamble? Two of the shooting skills are completely useless for us, and one is underwhelming (ammo roll one). I guess on a Gunbeast we don't have much choice, since the non-shooting skills won't help much either...

Imperial guard feels really weird bringing just one "real" stormtrooper as a special choice when he's literally just a tooled up vet with some crazy abilities. Feel like they should've replaced the stormtrooper specialist with a ratling or something.

Also not having any heavy weapons really sucks, even if we do get an extra special, although I get why they did it. Then again I say that, but apparently Eldar get their weapon platforms no problem according to what I've read, so it still makes no goddamn sense.

I wanted my Try again Bragg goddammit

As for Orks, I really was hoping to see Kommandos in a more official sense, although I'm sure I can just proxy them as boys, it feels odd that we don't have that option when sneaking around doing spec ops is supposed to be their thing (you know, the whole reason why IG can only bring Vet teams)

Admech are ok, although I have no idea why rad carbines got nerfed so hard.

Finally, it feels odd that Space marines for the most part are limited to scouts. You'd think we'd have at least SOME option for bringing them as regular core choices.

Actually, you only get 100 recruitment and 100 equipment which can't be shuffled across, so really you should never buy a new-spawn if you're having to drop a promethium cache anyway, because the extra 25 pts can't be used on equipment

>Actually, you only get 100 recruitment and 100 equipment which can't be shuffled across,

wat

>Kroot would be hard to give a Specialist
kroot ox, pair of kroot hounds, senior kroot shaper, knarloc rider

'course, then you run into the issue of those models being ancient and/or out of production

GW's kind of written themselves into a corner with the heavy weapons teams. Multi-based infantry don't play nice in skirmish games, and that fat base ain't great for wandering around the hive.

By all rights the guard SHOULD have access to heavies, but that'd necessitate people basing their guys individually (with the heavy on a 40mm or something) rather than together.

good ol gw corporate told them they couldn't design rules for things that didn't come in plastic kits or shitadel failcast

been getting destroyed as orks because regardless of loadsashots, you end up needing 6s, followed by 4s, and then you also have to wound. its pretty disheartening. I am going to switch to skitarii before the campaign.

Any tips for anyone running skitarii, or even how to not suck ass as orks? I started with nob with klaw, 3 yoofs with shootas, 2 boyz choppa slugga, and 2 spannas with big shootas.

>rules for things that didn't come in plastic kits

which is why IG have access to shotguns, melta bombs, krak grenades, red dot sights, telescopic sights, and carapace armor on all their guys

> Then again I say that, but apparently Eldar get their weapon platforms no problem according to what I've read, so it still makes no goddamn sense.

It makes perfect sense. Guardians have a weapons platform in their box. Cadians don't have heavy weapons in the squad box. A Cadian heavy weapons box costs more than a squad box.

It's pretty obvious that design requirement for the lists was to minimize the number of boxes required.

>Finally, it feels odd that Space marines for the most part are limited to scouts. You'd think we'd have at least SOME option for bringing them as regular core choices.

That's because whoever in the studio picked Marines as their kill team was a Grey Knight fanboy.

People really need to get that the kill teams for the most part are really low effort and the additional ones were likely just done by studio volunteers. All we can do is hope that SW:As popularity is enough for GW to release some additional supplements with better lists (and if we are really lucky adapt the original campaign system).

I don't think that's the case, it's more just that kroot have been neglected for more than a decade. There's not a lot to work with beyond just telling people "you have to convert everything yourself", which is at odds with the whole pick up a single box and be good to go style they're aiming at.

Kroot don't even have special weapons or a sergeant-equivalent in box.

I love converting and would be fine with building an army of kroot just from the plastic kit and leftover bits, but the game seems to have been designed where you are supposed to buy a box off the shelf and have all the options you need off the sprue.

>which is at odds with the whole pick up a single box and be good to go style they're aiming at.

That's what they were aiming at. I hope they realize that SW:A awakened a lot of grognards who love to convert.

I hadn't touched GW for a decade until SW:A and now I've spent over a thousand on models and terrain.

To my faction? Nobz in Mega-armour. Burna Boyz. Squigs.

tau should able take any unit we want. they team up with who ever

Get some red dot sights ya git

How do you fight Harlequins? Just wait on overwatch all game?

>Not gettin his shootas all flash with laser bits and tellyscopes

git/10

For your first question: a new-spawn is 175 base, plus another 20 for 2 sets of scything talons, since he HAS to be armed with one and has to be armed with something else, which talons are the cheapest again. So he comes out to 195 points, not enough for extended carapace just yet.

For question 2: I like deathspitters a lot, and I think you can dish out a great deal of damage, especially if the entire force takes them. But for the path I've set up for my force, its more efficient to buy one venom cannon at a time (as it is out most killy ranged weapon, and great at pinning) as opposed to multiple deathspitters.

Think of it this way, I can buy 90 points of deathspitters for my gunbeasts after the 1st game, save my cache, and stay at 4 models. Or I can add another body to the field and wait for game 2. Then I can either spend the 90 on deathspitters again and be up 1 cache higher, or I can dump it into a more effective weapon. Regardless of what I do, I want my gunbeasts in the end to have venom cannons. That means that if they buy deathspitters at any point, I would need to either waste the 45 points swapping it out, or give them to two of my 3 melee warriors which would reduce their attacks.

For your question, I'm not sure where the problem lies. My plan is to recruit a new spawn after the first game, and purchasing his equipment doesnt count as rearming. Everything past that is just rearming and skills/advancement.

Between games you can either recruit OR rearm. You are given 100 points (plus extra from guerilla skills/prometheum sprawl rolls, spending ONE cache) to either recruit more members to your team (these can be any option open to you, not only new recruits) and all equipment for them as you purchase them.

Weapons you purchase while recruiting cannot be traded to your other team members until after their first game, but while recruiting your other members may still trade upgrades like red dot sights, grenades, etc. if they can use them more effectively (like from a drop in BS from an injury or something and they need the boost).

Or you can choose to straight up rearm your force and purchase new equipment/weapons/upgrades. Existing weapons can be swapped around or discarded.

>For your first question: a new-spawn is 175 base, plus another 20 for 2 sets of scything talons,

New-Spawn come with pre-built Scyta, you only need to pay 10 get get another. Same as other army with unit start with a knife, or GK with a Storm-bolter. They don't have to pay for that.

And? Did you even read what the guy said?

I think the misunderstanding here is that OP doesn't realize the Newspawn comes with one set of talons included in its base cost.

So you can get a second set and a carapace for 200 total.

I forget that you couldn't divide your points between recruiting and resupplying (which is why I assumed he was spending the extra 15 points elsewhere -- in actuality he was just overpricing the Newspawn)

>How do you fight Harlequins? Just wait on overwatch all game?

It will sure as hell help

Skitarii technique: Get bodies first, then toys. Skitarii are top of the line in this game. Start off at 4+ armor, great guns and long range. Your galvanic rifles get a +1 to hit at long range, your snipers do d3 damage and can see across the table, and everyone has access to shooting (maybe?) and guerilla. Awesome.

End goal is to have your entire team with at least red dot sights. Get 3 arquebus snipers with photovisors, red dot sights, and delete necrons, nids, and power armor from across the map.

And yeah, I don't like leaving the Deathspitter points behind.

Although I sort of might want one on my leader in the endgame. He's in less danger as a shooter than he is as a puncher.

That presumes that nids can swap "equipment" among members of the kill team like every other faction does, but I'm not completely certain about that.

Necron can *teleport behind you* and screw up any sniper gunline really hard.

You guys must be right, I'll have to look into it. I assumed that since the entry states my warriors are equipped with scything talons, then must be armed with one item from "etc.", that I needed to pay for both the starting set and the second set. The beginning scything talons just being a mandatory starting choice.

This was how my group was reading it, but I'll have us look through it again.
If this isn't the case, and my team gets 40 points back, I'm thinking of getting that bonus carapace, and putting adrenal glands on the mook and leader.

Should i just start out with as many dudes with just basic guns and mabye one aquabus? HQ wth any gear? No special weapons at all?

Swapping equipment is in the main rules, so I think its ok. There's a specification in the list for warriors that details how many points you spend when you purchase new equipment for your model, but I dont think it restricts you from swapping old equipment like everyone else.

My alpha will be getting a death spitter alongside his boneswords later on in the campaign. Its not as importsnt as some other choices early on, but there's merit to utilising his BS4. Nids benefit greatly from bonus attack dice, but with 2 parries, re roll to wound with swords, and already being at ws5 base he shouldn't need the extra attack as much as the melee talon warrior mooks will.

Get one arquebus, snipe their leader, snipe their specialist, snipe Nid, sniper harlequin, snipe anything that have more than one wounds. Value as fuck.

So with IG grenade launchers, we have the options of buying just frag, just krak, or both grenades. However, buying both grenades at once is over a 100pts.

Am I allowed to buy one grenade type, then pay the difference in the next arm phase to make it up, or do I need to buy the other grenade at full cost if I'm going to buy it later?

I'm not certain about how many points your dudes are, but theres a guy in our group that runs skitarii scary good. Max out on bodies, but bring one bare arquebus to start. That will kill off specialists and leaders early off. No upgrades, just massed rifles and an arquebus. Get another 2 specialists with arquebuses asap, fill out your team with red dot sights, and bam you've got a gunline.

Someone would probably let you get away with it considering how many other rules glitches there are. But if you wanted to be strictly rules-as-written then no, you pay the points that it says in the list. You can get more than 100 points to resupply if you have a scavenger, mission result, or spend a promethium cache.

Can someone help me improve this list?

Dark Eldar Wych Cult
Syren - 150 points
Blast Pistol - 50 points
Chainhook - 10 points
Mirrorhelm - 20 points

Wych - 80 points
Chainhook - 10 points
Blade Venom - 10 points

Wych - 80 points
Chainhook - 10 points
Blade Venom - 10 points

Wych - 80 points
Chainhook - 10 points
Blade Venom - 10 points

Wych - 80 points
Chainhook - 10 points
Blade Venom - 10 points

Wych - 80 points
Chainhook - 10 points
Blade Venom - 10 points

Bloodbride - 100 points
Shardnet and Impaler - 35 points

Bloodbride - 100 points
Shardnet and Impaler - 35 points

My thinking is that any shooting army I can beat with the combination of attacks and rerolls to wound, and any combat army I can beat by tying up their toys with the bloodbrides. Not sure how correct that is, however.

>improve list

Don't play DE.

I'd get Pistol on Wych so they can actually provide pin support and wound anything that have T4.

So what does everyone do for a campaign as far as people missing games?

I'd like to start one, but my group has a bunch of life shit that has the chance of getting in the way. Wife and kids type shit.

We're planning on meeting up one day a week and doing 3 games each. But we realize that if someone misses 1 week they'll pretty much be boned due to being behind a minimum of 3 caches and 3 rearm/recruits.

On all of them, or something more akin to a split?

Are DE really that awful? Random drug rolls seem a little bit swingy but apart from that they don't seem significantly under powered in my mind.

get a better group

so what's the big list of errata and clarifications and balance concerns to bring up?

>Guard team leader and Tau team leader should have A 2.
>genestealer cult lasguns should be the normal lasgun price
>the tyranid ravenor should have 3 wounds
>tyranid warriors should probably have access to devourers as an option
>maybe let tyranid warriors do their resupply swapping of weapons also in the team construction phase, so you can start with (melee other than scytal)+gun builds
>holy balls clarify or rewrite the harlie terrain thing jesus

anything else i missed?

On Wych. Disarm on shardnet can be useful, but Pistol still had more use, unless you rolled on +1 Str.

The cost of the splinter pistol is the same as the chain hook and the blade venom. I figured the extra attack die and reroll to wounds whilst denying parries would get them about the same punch in combat as the guaranteed 4+ to wound.

I can just replace all the chainhooks and bladevenom now and buy it back a bit later into the campaign?

Ravener with 1W are fine, they don't have bounty, their use is to get that pesky Sniper on the back of the enemy team.

The buff they should get is : Burrow treat all terrain as open ground, and no more Instintice Behaviour, horrible rule.

Either have them play catch up games or just treat it as if they lost three games.

Up to you, if you can get to CC with them then hook+venom are better on T3,4. But against T5 (nurgle marine), get the pistol

Check this out, yall, cause I think I'm about to pull the trigger on the skitarii box:

Alpha
+ galv Rifle

Ranger x3
+galv rifle

Fresh forged x3
+galv rifle

Spec
+arcebus
+Photo-visor

This leaves room for my extra two specs and arcs later

Yeah, that sounds right. Is the ability to shoot the pistol (at only 12") very powerful? I know it can pin if it hits but I don't know how to value that having yet to play the game.

Something I've been curious on. In the section about running a campaign/league it says that you always run all fighters(mission permitting) save those out on injury. This seems that after creation of the team that point cost doesn't matter. That being the case does that mean the factions that don't specify a killteam size (cw/d eldar, necrons, chaos,...) can have as many fighters they want in later games?

The Harlequin player in my league bitched at me for turtling with my scouts around the objective.

I get that turtling isn't fun to play against, but I don't see much choice when my other option is to run up and get charged.

There is a default team size of 10 apparently.

The murder clowns could have made it to combat even with you turtling quite easily, no?

What's there to bitch about?

Tell him to fuck off. This isn't 40k, this is a deadly game of strategic urban warfare. Guess what you don't do in urban war environments? Compromise your position. If you've got the ability to destroy your enemy while being protected from them, you keep that shit until you're able to advance.

In this game, let them come to you.

He tried but I rolled high on my overwatch shots so I ended up winning.

"waaah my close combat army lost to shooting"

I don't see the issue. He took a one dimensional team and then complained when you used the only tactic you could.

Tell him to take a balanced team if he doesn't want his opponents to use extreme tactics.

Awwww, poor clown fucker.

I kinda thought venom cannons werent worth it when compared with barbed strangler: the cannons arent high impact so no bonuses to injury and the strangler is large blast which helps spread the enemy out and keeping them pinned.

Charging =/= Running
They get nothing

Imperial Guard: Penal Legionnaires

So I haven't played 40k since 5th edition but I wanna get into SW:A. I own about 12 Neophyte Hybrids and 5 Acolyte Hybrids. What do I do to make a viable list?

I thought the same thing, but I've seen merit to sustained fire 2 and the damage it causes. Even with bs4, those blasts will scatter far off very often. -1/-2 to running, and any cover mods will cause the 1 shot blast to miss quite often, while having up to 6 shots to fire gives you better odds of hitting outright, and you can still spread your shots to targets within 4" of the primary, so its like having a slightly larger large blast anyways (since the large blast radius is 2.5" and sustained fire lets you shoot within 4") plus he's carrying a gun thats larger than aspace marine, which is kind of cool.