WH40K: Macrobatteries

Macrobatteries

Macrobatteries are ranks of massive cannons or other weapons, fied in volley to overwhelm an enemy in a barrage of destruction.

Name	Type	Appropriate Hull Types	Scale	Space Range	Atmosphere Range	Rate of Fire	Damage
Thunderstrike Macrocannons	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-10/20/40	2-20/40/80km	3	7D+1
Mars Pattern Macrocannons	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-15/30/60	2-30/60/120km	3	8D+1
Mars Pattern Macrocannon Broadside	Cannon	Light Cruisers, Cruisers	Capital	1-15/30/60	2-30/60/120km	6	8D+1
Sunsear Laser Battery	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-23/45/90	2-45/90/180km	4	9D
Ryza Pattern Plasma Battery	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-13/25/50	2-25/50/100km	4	10D
Bombardment Cannons	Cannon	Light Cruisers, Cruisers	Capital	1-10/20/40	2-20/40/80km	3	12D
Disruption Macrocannons	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-13/25/50	2-25/50/100km	3	5D+1 Ionization
Disruption Macrocannon Broadside	Cannon	Light Cruisers, Cruisers	Capital	1-13/25/50	2-25/50/100km	6	5D+1 Ionization
Hecutor-pattern Plasma Battery	Cannon	Light Cruisers, Cruisers	Capital	1-28/55/110	2-55/110/220km	3	9D
Hecutor-pattern Plasma Broadside	Cannon	Battlecruisers, Grand Cruisers	Capital	1-28/55/110	2-55/110/220km	5	9D
Stygies-pattern Macrocannons	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-13/25/50	2-25/50/100km	3	8D+1
Jovian Missile Battery	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-15/30/60	2-30/60/120km	5	7D+1
Lathe Grav-culverin Broadside	Cannon	Light Cruisers, Cruisers	Capital	1-13/25/50	2-25/50/100km	6	8D+1
Mezoa Macrocannons	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-13/25/50	2-25/50/100km	4	9D+1
Pyros Melta-cannons	Cannon	All Ships	Capital	1-10/20/40	2-20/40/80km	3	10D
Sunsear Las-broadside	Cannon	Light Cruisers, Cruisers	Capital	1-23/45/90	2-45/90/180km	6	9D

Thunderstrike Macrocannons

An older version of the Mars Pattern, these macrocannons lack range and power. They are most often found on transports.

Mars Pattern Macrocannons

The most common macrobattery, these are reliable, hardhitting weapons firing kilo-tonne ordinance, mounted along the vessel’s dorsal ridge or in broadside.

Mars Pattern Macrocannon Broadside

The most common macrobattery, these are reliable, hardhitting weapons firing kilo-tonne ordinance, mounted in a warship’s extended broadside.

Broadside: These weapons must occupy a Port or Starboard Weapon Capacity slot.

Sunsear Laser Battery

These laser batteries are common on Naval frigates, providing a balance between power used and damage inflicted.

Ryza Pattern Plasma Battery

These weapons are rare and expensive examples of the ancient art of plasma-craft. Their power draw is considerable, but so is their effectiveness.

Vapourisation: When this Weapon rolls a Critical Hit, it effects two Components instead of one.

Disruption Macrocannons

This macrocannon variant fires a “shell” of highly charged, ionized deuterium atoms. These particles cause minimal physical damage to their targets. Instead, they are intended to overload and shut down power transfer systems throughout the target vessels. These weapons are particularly useful for vessels that need to capture their prey intact.

Short the Flow: Disruption weapons compromise the circuitry and wiring required to transfer power from the ship’s engine to her other components. For every five damage that exceeds the target’s Shields, one randomly selected Component on the target ship becomes Unpowered.

Ionic Blast: These weapons never cause critical hits, nor do they deal damage to Hull. These weapons may only be combined into a salvo with other Disruption Macrocannon weapons.

Disruption Macrocannon Broadside

These larger variants of the Disruption Macrocannon must be mounted on a warship’s extended broadside.

Short the Flow: Disruption weapons compromise the circuitry and wiring required to transfer power from the ship’s engine to her other components. For every five damage that exceeds the target’s Shields, one randomly selected Component on the target ship becomes Unpowered.

Ionic Blast: These weapons never cause critical hits, nor do they deal damage to Hull. These weapons may only be combined into a salvo with other Disruption Macrocannon weapons.

Broadside: These weapons must occupy a Port or Starboard Weapon Capacity slot.

Hecutor-pattern plasma Battery

The Hecutor Pattern plasma battery is an ancient variant of plasma macroweaponry that refocuses the power of the plasma “blast,” concentrating it into a compressed photonic packet that can be fired over extremely long distances. It is rare to see these on any but the oldest vessels, meaning many are found on heretic vessels lost to the forces of Chaos millennia ago.

Vapourisation: When this Weapon rolls a Critical Hit, it effects two Components instead of one.

Hecutor-pattern plasma Broadside

Few ships can match the power requirements necessary to equip a full broadside of these weapons, so these weapons are almost exclusively the providence of battlecruisers and larger warships.

Vapourisation: When this Weapon rolls a Critical Hit, it effects two Components instead of one.

Stygies-pattern Bombardment cannons

As the name suggests, these devastating weapons are designed to reduce planetary defences to rubble and support military landings. Most often they use linear accelerators to launch massed salvoes of heavy magma bomb warheads, and though relatively short ranged can also be used in naval combat. Often the rumour that orbiting vessels carry them is enough to force a quick surrender.

Destructive: If this weapon generates a critical hit, add 1 to the result rolled.

Death from Above: Bombardment Cannons act as macrobatteries and can only be mounted in a Prow, Dorsal, or Keel weapons slot. When in orbit, the players gain +4D towards any Intimidate tests against planetary based characters. When used as part of a planetary bombardment, bombardment cannons double the affected area, do an additional 15D damage to large units, and deal an additional 7D+1 damage to individuals and vehicles.

Stygies-pattern Macrocannon Battery

This variant of the macrocannon is designed to fire heavier ordnance than the Mars Pattern. These alternative shells contain an adamantium core that cuts through the heaviest armour.

Penetrator Rounds: When calculating damage dealt by a salvo that includes shots from a Stygies pattern Macrocannon that were not absorbed by Void Shields, reduce the vessel’s Hull by 1D. This reduction is not permanent, and only takes place while calculating that particular salvo’s damage.

Jovian-pattern Missile Battery

This unusual weapon system relies on medium-ranged missile pods rather than more ‘conventional’ macro-batteries. The pods are mostly outside the hull and can fire all their missiles in one immediate, devastating salvo, an advantage tempered by the lengthy time it takes to reload them.

Labour Intensive: This Weapon Component may only fire every other turn.

Lathe-pattern Grav-culverin Broadside

The strange orbital dance of the three planetoids that make up the Lathe forgeworlds has given the magos there a unique insight into the ancient art of grav-weaponry, using strange forces to hurl warheads at tremendous speeds. Due to the unique methods of propulsion, variant warheads can also be fired through the grav-culverin, including self-propelled ordinance for greater range.

Broadside: This weapon Component must occupy a Port or Starboard Weapon Capacity slot.

Self-propelled warhead: Before firing this weapon, the firer may choose to increase the range of this weapon by 2 SUs. If he does so, the damage of each shot is decreased to 7D+1.

Mezoa-pattern Macrocannons

The forge world of Mezoa has long advocated a modification of the standard Mars-pattern Macrocannons to increase damage at the cost of range and space.

Pyros Melta-cannons

These squat, oversized, and highly insulated macrocannon are designed specifically to fire shells tipped with powerful melta-charges that detonate with furious heat.

Inferno: Whenever this Weapon Component inflicts a Critical Hit, it is automatically a Fire! Critical.

Sunsear Las-broadside

With enough power, a ship of the line can mount entire broadsides of long ranged laser weaponry, giving it impressive offensive reach.

Broadside: This weapon Component must occupy a Port or Starboard Weapon Capacity slot.

Sources

• Rogue Trader - Core Rulebook (pages 202-203)
• Rogue Trader - Battlefleet Koronus (pages 34-37)
• Rogue Trader - Into The Storm - The Explorer's Handbook (pages 158-159)
• thedemonapostle