Hi all. It’s no secret that the board game has a lot of units with melee weapons in one hand and a pistol in the other. Here is my suggestion on how this could be implemented and for what weapon.
A dual wield rule that can be on melee or ranged weapons. Is in both weapon slots with this rule, then:
When choosing a melee weapon, the special attack is a normal shot (left mouse click) from an equipped ranged weapon with a penalty to rate of fire and accuracy. You can shoot from the block. Reloading such weapons is not automatic or forced, for this you need to switch to a ranged weapon.
When choosing a firearm, a special attack is a light attack with an equipped weapon, depending on the melee weapon itself, it may be possible to use a strong attack, or replacing a special attack with a block.
If only one weapon in the outfit has the dual wield rule, then the special attack is the current abilities of the flashlight, punch, etc.
An example of a weapon for the dual wield rule:
Laspistol, Catachan Combat Blade, Autopistol, stub revolver, Tactical Axe, possibly Duelling Sword.
Future Weapons: Power Fist, Bolt/Plasma Pistol.
Separately, I would like to offer weapon options for the preacher and ogryn - two one-handed weapons in each hand, at least 2 tactical axes, knives or 2 cleavers.
It would also be cool to see a combination of a cleaver knife + an ogrin shield.
it will probably arrive as specifique set of weapon, usually with more attack speed and less damage or with two different weapons for dual weilding (like in VT2 with the rapiere/pistol or sword and mace for example).
Likely its own weapon, yes, but also the javelin has ranged & melee in one weapon.
What’ll be interesting to see is if they dare to do a reverse on the dual melee concept on Slayer/GK/WP with dual ranged weapons. I bet that class could have a auto pistol and sword combo for people who don’t want to go full on ranged hardcore!
I’ve had a similar idea swirling around in my head while playing as well. Where is our pistol and chain sword combo? Saltzpyre in V2 had a very well implemented draft of this. (it was a staple to his character) His melee would function normally, and the special fire used the pistol. The pistol shot was very niche but still fun, not really used/viable. Switching to ranged would pull out his secondary pistol so he could dualwield pistols.
Fatshark has the system right in front of them. I think the best place to unveil this is with a new character class, for the veteran. Maybe a Shock Trooper? Does the class revolve around this idea of having both weapons equipped at the same time? I think so.
The story of Darktide doesn’t seem like we will get to the upper ranks since we are in a penal legion. I think a great way to introduce new characters is to bring them in from outside the penal legion. The Shock Troopers, for example, could have an intro cinematic or maybe even be part of the Guard the inquisitor uses. This directly clashes with our character creation since I’m not sure if we just swap classes on the fly, with the same character underneath. In any event, the dynamic with the Inquisitor’s guard and the penal legion would be interesting to explore while playing missions, but I’m wandering off topic… How does the Rapier and Pistol that Saltz uses in Vermintide evolve to Darktide?
Well, we have the weapons, that’s easy. The issue I see is the combat mechanics. How does it change and how can we make it work?
I think left-click should act the same. You can have your standard 2-3 attack combos. Hold left click for a charge. The alt attack will still rev up the chainsaw, as in not to confuse anybody.
This puts us in a difficult spot where right click is the intended block. How do we even fire the friggen gun? Swapping weapons? But we already have both in our hands!
There are a few design choices I feel.
Have the Class Ability allow the trooper to start firing his gun with left click. Blocking acts as normal. The ability can act as a toggle between Melee and Ranged. A whole class revoled around the toggle were we melee build up range damage (by using melee) and range damage builds up your next melee strike.
Have shooting be part of the melee combo, IE finishers. Lets imagine perhaps the 3rd attack of the chainsword be a pistol shot or the second charge attack be a volley of pistol shots! Act as if this weapon is melee for very close quarters situations. And this is were it can get a bit more exotic (gears of war style), have the alt charge (after the rev) include a pistol shot(finisher) to push away or purge the target, very cool!
This leaves the last thing. What about just swapping weapons? I think for this class you have a few options to explore.
Pull out a secondary ranged weapon, for mid-long range. Keep it simple.
Holster the pistol (which could reload the weapon) and 2-h the chainsword for a buff to damage and attack speed.
Holster the Sword and 2-h the pistol for the ability to ADS.(not a huge fan)
Hope these ideas help inspire, thanks for taking time to read if you made it this far! We wont get an Orc Gaunlet but we can damn well try! When you think about 40K this is a very common image across all races (of men). This is the perfect DLC class to introduce to the series.
I think the laspistol and chainsword of the tabletop will be too hard to implement considering how chain weapons function in darktide, and it would make almost every other melee weapon inferior.
But I can see two directions to get the ranged + melee into darktide
Basic sword of some kind + pistol would be fun and balanced like rapier & pistol in vermintide.
You will have less anti-armor bc you lack a chain or power weapon but you get ranged so you have a reason to pick this weapon and a reason to pick a chain or powered weapon instead.
Another direction could get the tabletop pairing but with less functionality, having the gun be the primary weapon and the melee be secondary like bayonets.
Laspistol currently has a melee on special that is a shove, they could change this so melee does a single target revved chainsword attack.
This would give you a great melee anti-armor attack on a otherwise outclassed ranged weapon, but it would have the drawbacks of being single target, no block, and not spammable. It would make the pistols in this game a real viable choice over rifles for melee lovers.
They could also make it where you could wield two one handed shooting or melee weapons at the cost of one or the other as an option.
So instead of a gun and a blade, you could go with two blades or two guns. This would give the players themselves some choice as to how they wanted to play as well. I know for a fact many Zealot players barely stop swinging their blades, even when faced with Machinegunners and heavily armored types they can’t damage so being able to go the full berserker route would appeal to at least some players. The same could be said for having a pair of pistols or the like and going in outlaw style.
