Wow, the US entrenching tool is made by the scissors and axes people.

I remember fondly a japanophile Nordic orc named Loki. He had cyber-implant weaponry skill with dual cyber-arm spurs, and a katana as his close combat weapons. Unfortunately he forgot, or neglected to get himself an unarmed combat skill.

This became pretty funny when we got into a barfight, where he and a drunken punter stood there for about three initiative passes, with Loki easily soaking the punches with his high body, but constantly failing to punch the guy, due to his defaulting roll failures. In the end Loki decided that pacifism wasn't worth it, and just gutted the guy instantly with his spurs.

It was always a source of annoyance to Loki, that my own character, Raven, a re-build of a covert ops specialist, always outshone him in hand to hand combat, and in that particularlar barfight, in the time it took Loki to throw all those feeble punches, Raven had dived under a table max payne style, shot out the kneecaps of one of the guys who started the barfights with his Browning Max Power, then proceeded to punch the other one clean over the counter and then leap over after him to beat him unconscious.

But the relevance of this story comes from the time Raven and Loki had to break into a politicians mansion and co-erce him through violent threats to his family and blackmail to drop out of an election. While Raven kept an eye on the poli's wife, children, and security team who were all tied up at this point, Loki went upstairs to find the poli.

The politician ended up waiting in a doorway and boning Loki over the head with a candelabra. This was pretty hilarious for Raven when he came upstairs to see what was going on. Then Loki got into the same barfight situation, he consistently failed to default to unarmed combat and the politician kept managing to hit him in the face with a candelabra. Raven stopped laughing when Loki shouted "OH DREK THIS" and tried to stab the politician with his spurs. At this point, Raven had to leap at Loki and tackle him to the ground. Where they tried to punch eachother for a while, and by using all of his combat pool, Loki managed to headbutt raven in the face.

By the time they made peace, they both had moderate and serious stun wounds, and had to chase the politician, who was halfway out of the bathroom window, as well as shoot a security guard who had gotten his way out of the ropes and attempted to call the cops.

I forgot about the hotdog stand/dodge scoot conversion. Not exactly a weapon but truly a baffling modification. Dwarf rigger/drug dealer who wanted a discrete way to peddle his wares and an escape vehicle if things went south (He had a trigger that dumped the dirty water and let him dive in through the top to assume control). This of course was SR3, before he could have bought half a dozen personal transportation options.

rant/
As far as e-tools.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=90159

I fall firmly in the "I will go for an e-tool kill after I've exhausted every other option at hand, or I'm trapped in WWI France." This has a lot do with the fact that our e-tools are light weight and that virtually everyone I've talked to has stated that an e-tool's ideal use is for digging cat holes and providing a perch while taking a shit. I personally know at least one guy who killed someone with a knife in Iraq. In contrast I have only heard of e-tool kills being spoken of in hushed, reverent tones, and usually in refernce to Vietnam.

That said I think that Marines are still trained to use them as weapons but it's certainly not a significant part of their training. I'm pretty comfortable with that. I'd rather hear "Hey doc! I can head shot a guy at 500 yards with a 240 golf" than "Dude, I can totally kill someone at 20 yards with my e-tool."

/rant

Well yes, as said in the article,

However, withz today's fast-moving, mobile style of warfare, prolonged battles between huge entrenched armies as in WW1 are pretty much unthinkable (and, if someone would dig in like that, they'd be sitting ducks for the opposition's air force), hence why it's primary days as a weapon are over.

maybe, but it's still in the doctrine of the german army somewhere, if i remember correctly . . simply, because nobody thought to take it out of there . . but then, there's such droll things like the part where soldiers get to read things like:"if the soldier has reached the very upper most tree-top, he may stop climbing on his own without having to wait for an order to do so" . . or something like that . .

Oh, CQB still sees some use, especially in urban theaters. Like those Highlanders who charged some al-Sadr brigadiers with bayonets mounted when they were attacked in Basra's old town district, where everything is close quarters. I guess there were similar occurrences in Afghanistan with out troops, but the MoD is very hush-hush about this (after all, they try to sell the Afghan operation as some sort of touchy-feely human relief, not a gritty counterinsurgency war).

Oh well, at least, now France steps in and saves the Germans from having to get their hands really dirty. I'm starting to really wonder whether Merkel is practicing black magic. Things turn out in her favor without her really seeming to do anything awfully often.

*shrugs* we're wondering about that ourselves to be honest . . but maybe she's just that good under that rusty old cover that nobody really sees what she's done and just sees what turns out in her/our benefit <.< . .

That would be the less exciting and more realistic assumption - noone thinks her dangerous until they find themselves with knives in their kidneys and wonder why it could have come to this ...

She's like Kohl. Just ... well, she does have smarts too. Real smarts, not instincts like the Fat Old Man has. Propably the most talented politican we had ... since the days of Schmidt and Brandt.

Anyway, so much for derailing ...

Have I already mentioned that one time where the elf max-charisma pheromone laden seduction 6 chick undressed int he middle of a gunfight and attempted to seduce the opfor? I think I have, but ... does that count as highly unconventional weapons or rather conventional idiocy?

*shrugs* weapons of a woman i'd say ^^

They'd work better if they were dikoted...
*ducks*

sad thing is: with cyber-tits, it's possible . .

Heard about this, and I swear next time Im across the pond Im finding out which pub those guys hang out at and picking up the tab for the lot of them. Supposedly the Sadrists basically did the equivalent of a doubletake and ran like hell.

Personally, my TO weapon for most of the time I was in was a JCS (Benelli M-1014 Autoloading shotgun). I used to strap a surplus machete across my lower back on my offhand side as an oh-shit fallback, but I also had an M-9 (Beretta 92FS 9mm) if need be.

I remember reading somewhere that from interveiws with troops who engaged in hand-to-hand during the last few wars, the most common weapon used to deliver a killing blow was a helmet. I guess when your rolling around in the dirt with some dude who wants to kill you, that old caveman "Bash with rock" mentality pays off.

The Helmet is even easier to grasp and swing than the common rock. In terms of 'rock bashing' it is Rock 2.0.

Highly recommended...



I was going to point out the amusing irony of the Sadr Brigades running, but that goes into dry history and cultural artifacts that apparently are no longer true. Carry on without me then, I'll be chortling over my history instead...

Im waiting for Rock XP

indeed, a watched the end of a program on SOE and similar on history channel, and there they talked to a french lady that was in the resistance. she claimed to have charmed german soldiers into carrying dangerous stuff for her multiple times.



would that be your average hand grenade?

or maybe that would be more rock ME then XP?



the most interesting part of that thread was the video attached in one of the first posts...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXeEPacF9E

the ease of tipping people over was staggering. makes one want to pick up a couple of tricks in case one wander into a barfight.

still, a swift kick to the groin and a runner works nicely in those situations iirc...

SR4 Adept with the missile mastery and the motion detection sense so he can sense around corners.
Weapon of choice? A bouncy ball.
Hit the guy and the ball bounces back for another go, plus you can chuckit against a wall and have it bounce into a guy around the corner. If you have a sucker GM, it may even be able to bounce back around the corner and into your hand.

Rock ME met with poor reveiws and dissatisfied customers due to its tendancy to explode as soon as the pin was pulled.

Rock XP initially had probelms, such as unexpected and unpredictable fuse burn-times, but this was mostly sorted out with service packs. Rock XP is now considered one of the most stable and feature rich Rocks on the market.

Rock Vista is basically Rock XP made really pretty, but with all the instabillity of a new OS and a bunch of features no ones figured out how to use yet.

iRock, which wont talk to other rocks and really has no use outside of the niche of graphic artists and people who like "what owning an iRock says about me" is the only real alternative on the market for the average consumer.

ROCKUX is another Rock out there, but its mostly only used by hardcore enthusiasts who have a reputation for not bathing.

more correctly its a book containing instructions on how to build your rockux.

there are outlets that will sell you either the book and a collection of parts, or the book and a preassembled rockux.

Do share, please ... if need be via PM. I like history.

All I have to say about helmets is:
"You ever heard the sound of turtles fucking?"

Hullbreach: You forgot to mention that Rock Vista asks you no less than three time everytime you want to:
a.) Move your rock
b.) Change your rocks color
c.) Kill someone with your rock

It also comes in several nonsensical versions all of which are missing features. Except for Rock Vista Super Double Platinum Professional, which costs as much as a midsize luxury sedan.

Needless to say I won't be adopting Rock Vista until they pry Rock Xp from my cold dead fingers.

another interesting weapon i once saw was the tricked out scythe . . 2m long shaft, 1m long dikoted blade, blade could be folded into the shaft like a poket knife, blade was laden with poison, there were electro-shock-thingies on the shaft, on the upper and lower end of the shaft were retractable dikoted points, like those used for the combat axe and the shaft itself telescoped down to 1m length . . comment:"i am become death, destroyer of worlds"

Shit. Was the PC also using an anchored levitate spell and always wearing a stupid black robe?

black robe, obvious cyber-skull, obvious cyber-hands, all made to look like, yep, you guessed it . . bones . .
but somebody from our group also made a mage like that once . . specialised in inspiring fear and other such things

bah, every time someone talks about using a scythe as a weapon im reminded of a comic i ones read about a future dystopia of some sort where a group of robots and people a fighting some kind of blob that used to be human.

i bought it ones, but i can no longer find it anywhere (but its years ago so im not really that surprised. most likely its in a box somewhere in a attic or basement).

...I still think OneThirtyEight's dead goose is the best so far, with the killer french fries a close second.

Okay, propably not the person I thought it was after all ... German player?

ah yup, german player *g*
i don't know any non german players

Few years back I read about a guy who got arrested in a retirement community walking up to peoples windows dressed like this (complete with Scythe) and pointing at them. I guess there were a couple of near-heart attacks.

probably in america . . land of limited impossibilities . . because that's just plain funny ^^

hmm . . i wonder . . would a cybyer-weapon-flame-thrower be possible?
and more or less worth the cost?
kinda like that spitting snake just with . . something that can be lit on fire at will . .
fuck dragons and drakes, i can blow fire too!

Hilarious all round.

The missile mastery / power throw combo results in some pretty silly situations. Our thrower guy generally uses nerve toxin filled chopsticks, but he's also used grenades, and frequently asks to use random objects, from empty beer cans (how can that do 11P?!?) to books. (imagine being killed by "The Pacifist Book").

*cribbed guitlessly from "Three Kings" one of my favorite flicks of all time and a major personal inspiration for SR*

C4 nerf football. The things you can do with that are exciting.

A char in my old group had one. A multicomponent system: An internal gas tank containing Propane gas and an eye welding laser system. Gas is released at high pressure and ignited via eye laser for a nice flame.

Hm. Does that count as an odd weapon? I guess it does.

I still wanna make a street sam with a cyberleg and a shotgun or 20mm implanted so that the round exits around his knee. Get into hand to hand combat, muay thai style, and unload into someone at point blank.

i would suggest a cyberskull to go with that. the heat would be downright nasty for the user...

Cyber flamethrower...
...
...
...


I think ''Sex Bomb'' just got a new attachment. Oh, the PCs will love me forever.

Nuff said

Probably most likely Florida land of old people and strangeness...

the leg and gun thing is easy, just have a lower leg replaced, build weapon in there with the muzzle being in the knee . . so if you have to sit on the floor with some asian guys, you can still shoot them, without even having to get up O.o and in the muai-thai you kick the knee below the chin and then go bang *g*
yeah, i was thinking about some form of exhalator and internal tank too . . i got stuck on the igniting thing . . but hell, that weapon would be cool in one arm too . . and the laser in the other hand . . I AM THE LIGHTBRINGER! CALL ME PROMETHEUS! SEE THE LIGHT!
or just to rile up mages . . shooting fire and light from your hands eh? yeah,i can do that . .

Leg w/ a shotgun. The A-Team season three, episode 2, two-part "Bend in the River"