Dulahan said:

Yes, I certainly see how such a scenario could happen, and be a great deal of fun, if the GM gave a blessing, and no one in the group said "profane xenos garbage! We should destroy it. The Uplifting Primer specifically says that Eldar technology is inferior to ours, as well as cursed.", or a tech-priest in the team might say their equivalent.  My only problem with your setup is that I don't believe Necron tech can be used by anyone else; they are the power source. If they could capture some Eldar weapons, though, or such, it could be a nice back up for doomsday.

On a similar note, I have considered having a group/battle group (bigger, with the NPC drag alongs) finding and capturing a Tau base. After the Tech-Priest clears the stuff, I could imagine the soldiers putting the rail rifles, stealth suits, and maybe even a Broadside, or Crisis Suit to awesome use. I'm not sure how much of it they could get away with, since the Tau might be USING the same stuff in their battle, but I really do like it; I long for the day when Mankind begins to reacquire "safe", high-end technology. A senior Officer riding around in Command Suit, having an unparalleled view of the field, safely behind a shield, raining death down upon the enemy with fusion blasters, or whatever, could be very inspiring. While I don't really want the Imperium and Tau to team up, having them get some Tau tech could b great.

You're probably right on the Necron thing. 

But even ignoring Xenos stuff, the same thing could happen with a squirreled away stash of Plasma weapons.

Or on a smaller scale with one trooper who has some sort of really good weapon stashed away and helps save the day with it. 

"We need to clear that ridge.."

"Sir!  Our lasguns and grenades can barely scratch those things!"

"Um, Sir!  I think it's time to use that funny grenade I have…"

*And lo did Private Pearsons pull the pin and count to 3, not 4, definitely not 5, and only 2 on the way to 3 before he threw it to let the foul Xenos tech destroy the equally foul Xenos beasts on the ridge…  Commissar Bob was not too happy with the Xenos Tech useage, and Pearsons got assigned extra shifts praying and peeling potatoes to purify his soul.*

Dulahan said:

Monty Python for the win

Dulahan said:

It's nice to see Xenos, who being naughty in His eyes, did snuff it, at the hands of xenos gear. It reminds me of a game of Stargate SG-1 I played, where one of our characters, Dr. Prescott (a veritable Daniel Jackson when it comes to tech and tinkering), saved the day by rigging up, and I kid you not, a makeshift nuke out of naquadah generators, and some other Gao'uld tech there, and then leaving through the gate. When we returned to Earth, and got debriefed, Prescott was actually arrested for committing a war crime, and held in Area 51, until such time as he was tentatively cleared for supervised duty again. We have forever referred to it and later things as "Prescott's Presents".

I still wonder if a group of Guardsmen could capture a Tau base, and make use of their various gear. It would be so awesome, if they could figure out how to use it, and have access to such assets as the Tau regularly make use of, especially in conjunction with what they already have.

No kidding! Have you seen the RPG stats for the Tau rank-and-file guns? Egad! They're almost the equivalent of heavy bolters, without the need for bracing! (2d10+5 E damage, I believe.)

Hey, really liking this thread.

Got to say though, I sort of like the idea of using only subtle variations of basic gear.  maybe allowing for modifications and different versions that lead to each player making his/her gun unique but basicly no better then the next guys. 

The idea of scenerio specific equipment is kind of interesting as well, create sort of a dogpile on the dead Tau at the start of every mission then having to give up most of the real good stuff at the end, maybe making a little game of concealing a few of your favorite things to keep for the long haul though. 

All in all I hope most of the equipment is failrly mediocre, with the higher end stuff being sort of on par with like starter level rogue trader stuff, because I think only war and rogue trader could probably work the best out of all the 40k rpgs to string together.

 In summary.

1) Obviously compared to DW (and even RT) starting characters are going to have terrible gear, no-ones expecting them to be nailing Hive Tyrants right out of the gate. But it's going to be on a par with DH starting character, probably better than a lot them.

2) Even the high best gear is not going to compare to the best DW stuff. Which is fine, the difference between starting gear and end gear is whats important and that's going to be a massive gulf for OW characters in DW there's only a few things that are actually better in all respects.

3) When it comes down to it the top level stuff RT and DW characters will be green with the firepower you get on your Leman Russ Executioner or a Bane Blade.

4) Yes most IG are destined to die horribly early in there careers. That's true of nearly every RPG characters, from DH Acolytes to Cthulu Investigators. Even most SM's are going to buy it before they get to be Captains. You don't play RPG's to blindly accept the odds, you play it to be beat the odds. That's what makes a good story. Going from a veteran SM to MORE veteran Space Marine  is nice, going from a green conscript to Hero of the Imperium is going to be epic.

5) The IG doesn't consider itself to be weak, fragile and ultimately expendable. An IG regiment is a super-organism, the deaths of Individual soldiers in it's pursuit of glory make no difference. 

I think that Only war and DH would work best togeather,  both run of the mill everyday joes.

 To be honest, if I'm playing a Guardsman I kinda want to be rocking the lasgun/flack armour combo.

It'd be sort of nice if that was viable, either by ensuring that the adventures are full of bad guys who can be dealt with with a lasgun or by having feats and whatnot that keeps it useful.

Face Eater said:

I'm relatively certain that when it comes to a barrel-measuring contest, even the tiniest ship-based macrocannon beats tank guns hands down, not to mention torpedoes or a Nova-cannon…

A tank commander may feel like the big man while sitting in his seat, but only a starship captain (and higher) knows what wielding Power feels like.

H2SO4 said:

HERESY! You forget the Emperor! (lol)

…and Titan Princeps!

On a ground based scale of 'oh my f**king god emperah, its coming right for us' I think the Titan probably still has trumps on making a fairly huge impact on the battlefield. Also factoring in their comparative scarcity and difficulty of deployment you can fairly much be assured that whatever theatre you're in and titans turns up, has gone to complete shit and all bets are off on anyone surviving very long.

Just never forget that a tank company can slay even the largest titan. Oh, well, an Imperitor maybe not, but anything smaller is in for a world of hurt.

H2SO4 said:

Well, technically a Banesword HAS a macro cannon. But point taken, shouldn't call a Rogue Trader on that, but within theater that's still unprecedented firepower and not likely to be beaten until you can play a Titan precept, which is probably a bit limited comparatively.

If I can drift back on to the topic of using archeotech/xenos gear.  I was loooking through the imperial gaurd section on GW today, spotted commisar yaric and remember how he uses a salvaged orc power claw.  Given that he's the guy who would shoot you for doing something wrong and is in the public eye enough to be given real trouble for breaking from standard kit, even with the greater leeway given to a guy like him, I think it can be assumed that a guardsman in an elite squad, like the one you should qualify by the higher levels of OW, should be able to make use of a few war trophies that they've picked up along the way without catching too much flak for it.