Spotlight: Officers' equipment
This post is part of a series of spotlights that covers the official info found in RPG material, novels, and general fluff produced by -or under license of- Games Workshop. Although the sources vary, from my years and years of obsession and research I can present at least the basic concepts that seem to be the stock and standard info that the GW design team has established and sticks by.
Firstly, officers.
In the original artwork officers are equipped with a pistol and a sword. It is hard to read on Jez's concept drawings and I've seen lots of misinformation and assumption by fans, but officers do not carry laspistols. The Officer of the Fleet model does, and there are several deviations from the original design, but I'll get to that later. In Jez's original design he specifies that the junior officer carries a bolt pistol with a shorter than normal magazine. Later fluff through the 90s and noughties talk about various "Naval Pistols" or "Navy Pistols", these are variously described as officers' sidearms, armsmen's sidearms, and notably also crewmen's (ratings) sidearms. The consistent concept is that these are unusually heavy calibre pistols and can also be used as clubs in close combat, which means they must be very bulky indeed. Several gloriously named variants come up such as the Cypra Mundi "Irontalon" pistol, and the Scipio pattern naval pistol. Different interpretations come up for these pistols based on the nature of the game or context. Obviously when used as fluff for a game, such as an RPG, the crunch (rules) will dictate what type of pistol it actually is, this is a similar situation to the Officer of the Fleet's weak laspistol. In rules it looks like stub pistols and autopistols are the common interpretation. Fluff and novels describe the pistol as being able to vaporise a man's head or put a massive hole in xeno's at short range- so again, the "naval pistol" -certainly officers' pistols- are supposed to be especially punchy, and certainly suits Jez's original vision of a boltpistol.
There seems to be one line of fluff that has naval infantry equipped with "shot" weapons, for example, in some cases we see officers equipped with "shotpistols", armsmen equipped with shotcannons, and voidsmen equipped with shotguns like the Cypra Mundi "Ironclaw" Shotgun. I haven't found a definitive piece of artwork for a naval pistol, but I include at least one which seems to be associated with it.
Jez's designs show officers with a "heavy powered cutlass", the fluff does say that naval officers are prone to fight honour duels so there is reason to think they place especial pride in the quality of their swords. Jez's sketch notes that the high collars are neckguards "awarded with duelling rank", which I interpret (combined with what I have seen in fluff) to mean that when a midshipman (officer cadet) proves his worth and beats an officer in a duel, he is promoted to junior officer proper and given the high collar as a sign of rank. Therefore, in my mind, potential rules or tabletop representation would mean a number of non-collared midshipmen would act as "sergeants" for most units. John Blanche's "secondary naval officer" seems to represent one of these duellists.
As for armour, the current 8th edition rules for the Officer of the Fleet state that he is equipped with flak armour despite the model not wearing anything other than the standard uniform. In Jez's sketch even junior officers have a "shield generator", I'm not sure if this is a precursor to a "refractor field" or not, but I am sure that there were already rules for refractor fields in 1989 when Jez made his sketches, therefore the shield generator seems to be a different idea. The generator seems to radiate from a vambrace on the left forearm.
He describes it as offering "excellent protection in the direction it is pointed" which again sounds different from a refractor field. Jez's idea is that if an officer is being attacked from multiple directions, the shield will only cover one angle, meaning that although the officer has "excellent protection" it also has a potential for rules vulnerability. In my own envisioning of the fluff-to-crunch, I imagine that officers are vulnerable to flame weapons, blasts (artillery, grenades), and can only have a high armour save against the first shot per turn or all shots from a single unit per turn. That would mean that a second unit firing on the officer will be able to easily take him down, which seems like a fair rules trade-off to me.
Firstly, officers.
In the original artwork officers are equipped with a pistol and a sword. It is hard to read on Jez's concept drawings and I've seen lots of misinformation and assumption by fans, but officers do not carry laspistols. The Officer of the Fleet model does, and there are several deviations from the original design, but I'll get to that later. In Jez's original design he specifies that the junior officer carries a bolt pistol with a shorter than normal magazine. Later fluff through the 90s and noughties talk about various "Naval Pistols" or "Navy Pistols", these are variously described as officers' sidearms, armsmen's sidearms, and notably also crewmen's (ratings) sidearms. The consistent concept is that these are unusually heavy calibre pistols and can also be used as clubs in close combat, which means they must be very bulky indeed. Several gloriously named variants come up such as the Cypra Mundi "Irontalon" pistol, and the Scipio pattern naval pistol. Different interpretations come up for these pistols based on the nature of the game or context. Obviously when used as fluff for a game, such as an RPG, the crunch (rules) will dictate what type of pistol it actually is, this is a similar situation to the Officer of the Fleet's weak laspistol. In rules it looks like stub pistols and autopistols are the common interpretation. Fluff and novels describe the pistol as being able to vaporise a man's head or put a massive hole in xeno's at short range- so again, the "naval pistol" -certainly officers' pistols- are supposed to be especially punchy, and certainly suits Jez's original vision of a boltpistol.
There seems to be one line of fluff that has naval infantry equipped with "shot" weapons, for example, in some cases we see officers equipped with "shotpistols", armsmen equipped with shotcannons, and voidsmen equipped with shotguns like the Cypra Mundi "Ironclaw" Shotgun. I haven't found a definitive piece of artwork for a naval pistol, but I include at least one which seems to be associated with it.
Jez's designs show officers with a "heavy powered cutlass", the fluff does say that naval officers are prone to fight honour duels so there is reason to think they place especial pride in the quality of their swords. Jez's sketch notes that the high collars are neckguards "awarded with duelling rank", which I interpret (combined with what I have seen in fluff) to mean that when a midshipman (officer cadet) proves his worth and beats an officer in a duel, he is promoted to junior officer proper and given the high collar as a sign of rank. Therefore, in my mind, potential rules or tabletop representation would mean a number of non-collared midshipmen would act as "sergeants" for most units. John Blanche's "secondary naval officer" seems to represent one of these duellists.
As for armour, the current 8th edition rules for the Officer of the Fleet state that he is equipped with flak armour despite the model not wearing anything other than the standard uniform. In Jez's sketch even junior officers have a "shield generator", I'm not sure if this is a precursor to a "refractor field" or not, but I am sure that there were already rules for refractor fields in 1989 when Jez made his sketches, therefore the shield generator seems to be a different idea. The generator seems to radiate from a vambrace on the left forearm.
He describes it as offering "excellent protection in the direction it is pointed" which again sounds different from a refractor field. Jez's idea is that if an officer is being attacked from multiple directions, the shield will only cover one angle, meaning that although the officer has "excellent protection" it also has a potential for rules vulnerability. In my own envisioning of the fluff-to-crunch, I imagine that officers are vulnerable to flame weapons, blasts (artillery, grenades), and can only have a high armour save against the first shot per turn or all shots from a single unit per turn. That would mean that a second unit firing on the officer will be able to easily take him down, which seems like a fair rules trade-off to me.
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