#length:30 40k

[soulhusbands]

“Dee?”

“Yeah, Sammy.”

Sam sniffed. “Will you be my best friend?”

“Already am, Sammy.”

“Always?” Sam gazed up at his big brother with those puppy dog eyes that made it impossible for Dean to say no, and honestly, he didn’t want to anyway.

“Always.”

Burn Out The Night by sylsdarkplace

Art by quickreaver

Sam/Dean

AU - Canondivergent

Witchcraft - Anti-social Winchesters

Explicit

34k

[more on pinboard]

[mejomonster]

i know we’ve never talked but i saw your tags on the post about writing and i just wanted to say that even if you never finish anything, it’s admirable that you do anything with them at all, and that i hope one day you’ll be able to finish something and experience that joy :)

💜💜💜💜💜💜 ;-; thank you for these words!

I really hope to finish a story first draft by the end of the year, or soon after that. Even if its only a draft and that dumb annoying perfectionist voice pipes up and tries to insist it needs to be scrapped or rewritten or whatever annoying thought, im going to be so excited to have something done at least. A first draft i can point to and be like:wow, wooh! I am holding my own story in my hand and i can forget the plot and still pick it up and read it in a few years and how cool that is! How much it makes my chest ache with warmth!

But also, even if i finish no draft this year, i started at least! I wrote 100,000+ words of original stuff this year so at least the ideas are started, are somewhat put down, are pieces that exist now i can treasure and find later

Thank you again <3

[frutiylaris]

Warhammer (40K and 30K) Youtuber Masterlist ("Good" At teaching/entertaining)

Hi there! This is just a masterlist cataloguing, in my opinion, the warhammer youtuber space and who can actually be reasonably trusted to give you lore/isn't terrible. This list is not exhaustive and very opiniated because I am, myself, a lore youtuber with a focus on citations and good info you can find yourself. My criteria may seem silly and too stringent on occassion but I run 5 servers, and hold the position of ""lore master"" in them, it is NOT a good role to have and in no way does it give me any more say on anything on the setting. My critiera is thus 1. Broad statements without backup < Bad 2. Fandom mentioned anywhere < Terrible, Lexicanum may be seen as "purist" but its better with how it handles sourcing. 3. Uncritical and wholesale reciting of fandom pages < Bad 4. Book mentions/Paragraph reading < Good generally, but a page number SHOULD accompany it. 5. Length < Hour long videos do not entice, they make people evade. If I can boil down an entire weapon into 15 minutes or less, you can too. 6. Community Fostering < How they foster their community and what community they prominently feature be it reddit, twitter (god forbid) blusky, tumblr etc. This critiera is not exhaustive and other reasons may apply. Ai is frowned upon because it harms the enviroment to an insane degree and is also FUCKING LAZY. Lastly, this list will be kept as up to date as possible and only include english speaking channels as I myself am primarily an english speaker. If you have a person you'd like to see added/researched please comment/reblog or send a PM The LIST in question: Luetin09 <- Length does not equate to quality nor does 30 years of experience/engaging mean you will get everything right. Terrible at actually teaching anything meaningful. That and selling fanon as canon on occassion, big no no. However, entertaining and good at argumentation on occassion. 4/10 Majorkill <- Swearing every few seconds doesn't make you entertaining. Doesn't think too much and very much a 'hype' man archetype. Attracts ""edgy"" types. However, exposed Arch, otherwise known as Arch warhammer, as a racist so additional point awarded. 3/10 OneMindsyndicate <- Dead in the water and uses Ai. 0/10 The Amber King <- Length does not equate to quality. Nor does neglecting your channel to mooch off podcasts make you look any better. 1/10 Mrbones40K <- Opinion focused channel on the setting as a whole. Bad source because of it. Also unironically using wojaks. Entertaining at the bare minimum. 4/10 The Remembrancer <- Quantity does not equate to quality nor does Length equate to quality either. Terrible source because of the content pumping. Entertaining and passionate but loses the forest for the trees. 5/10 Deadlifts for the dark gods <- Self-help focus on the channel, not bad, however unironically believes old warhammer was "better" and "soulful" Red flag, to me anyway, entertaining at minimum but terrible for 40K lore... also a shorts merchant, ew. However, defends fulgrim on occassion, additional point awarded. 4/10 Pancreasnowork <- You're not funny nor charming constantly shitting on warhammer 40K and claiming fantasy is the best thing since sliced bread, grow up. The personality of an in-universe eldar who thinks he knows better, thats the only lore accurate thing he has in his bones. Also stop whoring yourself out for dogshit sponsers. 1/10 Baldermort's Guide to Warhammer <- Channel name is misleading, however good hearted and focused on having fun with the setting and, though no citations are quoted, I can see Baldermort is trying his best to respect the setting. Terrible for learning lore, but very entertaining and has a good writing style. Focus on making fan works and you'll be okay. 6/10 The Ashen Hollow <- "Lore to sleep to" You can't absorb lore whilst sleeping nor retain said knowledge if you are tired. Length does not equate to quality either. 2/10 The 40K codex, imperial iterator, Scholars Lore, Lotara lore, The Forgotten narrator and Archivist Tenebrarius <- All of these are Ai. Grifters, the lot of them.

The Serpents Lodge <- Good hearted and passionate but terrible for lore, sorry lads. Entertaining but definitely on the ""edgier"" side of the fandom. 4/10 Astartes Anonymous <- Fulgrim slander is not looked upon kindly, joke aside. Terrible for lore and even attempts at teaching it, whilst good hearted, fall short. Mainly miniature and community focused, however shorts merchant. Very Entertaining at least. 5/10 This is the current version of list Ver_1.0, if you have anyone you'd like reviewed and added please let me know via a PM, comment or reblog.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph ! I do realise you get an enormous amount of requests, but I hope you'll find time to answer mine. I hope this hasn't been answered before ?

What are, in your opinion, the most in-character, and BBC accurate Johnlock fanfics you've ever read ?

I'm currently looking for something very canon-compliant, and I'm having a bit of trouble. Any length and rating will do !

Thank you for everything you do ! Your work for the Sherlock (especially johnlock/TJLC) has always been quite remarkable :)

Excellent day to you !

-Mea

Hi Lovely!

Thank you for your kind words, it's much appreciated!!!

As for in-character fics, I should state here that "in-character" is subjective to each individual, so my idea of "in-character" will be different from other people's!

That said, any of my fic recs on any of my Fic Rec Lists that aren't appended with MFL (because I haven't read them) could be considered what I call in-character, LOL. BUT if you want some of my faves, these will be the ones to start with:

I-J’s Last 50 Bookmarked Fics (June 2017)

Last 17 Bookmarked Fics (July 2017) 

Last 30 Bookmarked Fics (November 2017)

Last 86 Bookmarked Fics (Jan 2019) || [MOBILE]

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

Ten Fave Short Johnlock Fics (Easy Reads April 2018)

25 Fave Johnlock One Shots (April 2018)

Top 10 Fave Fics (September 2018)

Top 20 Bookmarks of 2018 (March 2019)

Another Top 10 Fave Fics (June 2019)

Top 30 Read-Again Fics (March 2019)

Top 30 Read-Again Fics Pt. 2 (Sept. 2019)

Fave Read-Again Fics (10) (Dec 11/20)

Top 25 Fave Non-Ao3 Fics (Nov. 2019)

Top 25 Fave Non-Ao3 Fics Pt 2 (Apr 2022)

Top 25 Fave Non-AO3 Fics Pt 3 (May 2023)

Top 25 Bookmarks of 2019 (Dec. 29/2019)

Top 30 Bookmarks of 2020

Top 25 Bookmarks of 2021

Top 20 Bookmarks of 2022

Top 35 Bookmarks of 2023

Top 20 Comfort Fics (Feb 2022)

Top 30 Fave Angst Fics Under 10K

25 Fics for Fic Rec Bingo

10 Current Fave Multi-Fandom Fics (June 2023)

Alternate First Meetings (Canon-Feeling)

Sorry I can't be more specific, but I genuinely would be listing dozens of fics for you, LOL.

Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with, and again, I hope you enjoy your time here!!! *HUGS*

[turnwheelofthetwelve-if]

Doesnt this seem waaaay to ambitious?

That's why its still in conceptual planning LOL!

Realistically, though, I actually plan for these to be short with a novella-like length, so between 15,000 to 40,000 words. Because of the shorter length, I'm also considering making these fairly cheap at 1 to 2 USD.

They're not going to be huge works like the others I have. And kind of really only exist because I have to generate some extra income while focusing on writing and coding the other projects.

EDIT: For reference, 15k to 40k is about 30 to 80 pages, if this were a book, for a better representation of how small these are.

[bladeweaver-if]

Devlog (01/02/24) Plus an Announcement

2k words written today, same as yesterday roughly. February's off to a pretty good start! I want to be writing basically every other day (ideally that would be every day but I have other responsibilities, sadly 😝) which would help me get very close to my goal of getting around 30-40k done this month, not counting days where I go insane and write way too much, of course haha.

Chapter 2, in total, is around 75-80k words long right now. When split in two to account for each mentor's path, adding the parts that don't branch, that would make it around 50k on a playthrough, including code. I want this chapter to roughly be around 100-120k words long?

For context, the total wordcount of the entire game right now is 124,000 words.

So, yeah. Lots to do! I'm thinking that most of the chapters afterwards will be a similar length to this one, especially the next, Chapter 3. Lots of stuff happening there, lol.

That leads in to my next topic:

Bladeweaver as a book. I've had this story planned down in two distinct 'parts' for a while, and it makes sense to me to split those parts into two different games. I feel that it'd be just too long to fit everything into one package.

To that end, I'm going to tentatively say that Bladeweaver is going to be a duology! I'll begin work on the second book once this one is almost done, though once book 1 is released I'll be focusing mainly on a different unannounced project while working on book 2 on the side. That project will be smaller in scope, so I'm aiming to have it done quick so I can then ramp up book 2 writing after that.

It's a cool world and premise that I'm excited to show off one day, but I won't say anything about it now. I feel it's a trap for IF authors to have too many projects being worked on at once 😅

Both books are being written at the same time, though I'm only actively working on, and coding, book 1.

That's all for now, bye!

[mostremote]

Well, The Shivering Season is finally complete. 174k words in 5 months, which is a lot even by my standards. It has been a huge enjoyment to write, and I've been blown away by the positive support it has received. As someone who has written fanfiction for a long time and never attracted many readers, I have been absolutely floored by the support for this fic, especially since it's such a niche pairing (weird, really, considering it's the hero and the villain -- but most people don't like to read about such a drastic age difference). Thank you so much, all of you, for all your comments and feedback. They have been a delight to read.

I think, at this point, I am probably emotionally done with Katniss and Snow. They have been a huge fixation for me, but I think it's time that I move on andahaha hahaha I'm just joking i've already got 2 oneshots, a nearly-finished mid-length fic, and a whole other longfic planned for them lmao

What's next?

Next Friday we take a break from our usual programming so I can have a rest and I'll post a short cuck!Peeta eversnow smut oneshot, "The Rose Grew Stranger". After that, I will begin posting a new mid-length fic (30-40k), There Is a World Elsewhere. This is an extremely dark eversnow 'whump' story in which Snow tortures Katniss physically and psychologically. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea then please give it a miss!

I have a (heaven help me) Snow/Tigris oneshot that I've been tinkering with, and I'll post that when I finish it.

After that, I aim to begin posting a new longfic for Snow and Katniss, as yet untitled. Set after Mockingjay, this story explores a scenario where Coin survives Katniss' assassination attempt, Snow escapes, and Katniss is tasked with recruiting/abducting Snow to help bring down Coin. What is it like for Katniss when she is forced to protect the man she hates most? Or when that man becomes the only ally she has left in an increasingly politically hostile landscape? This is a lighter story than The Shivering Season, though it is still firmly in the 'angst' category. They go on a road trip! Featuring: Snow and Katniss sharing a tent! Snow making tea! So much wound care!

I hope you will enjoy reading about the adventures of these two idiots as I continue to put them in Various Situations : )

[memberment]

The End Is Near Updates??? (Let's fucking go, I guess???)

ALRIGHT WELL

All of my plans to get shit done before school starts continue to swirl the drain as I am full immersed in this rewrite.

I have decided to use headers and make this a single work because honestly I did not want to keep it a series so I figured it out

Also I'm at the end of book one. And SOBBING. I forgot Clyde and Kenny get married in the first round. This was literally the first fic I ever wrote them in like I'm screaming. This fic was my rare pair origin story lowk LMFAOOO like between them and butters/bebe like ugh.

My first book one was like just under 18k and I am currently slowly omw to 22k, like I am right there.

So it's looking like I'm just gonna be belting out monster-illiad length fics for a while with fun little sprinkles of 30/40ks

someone call god, tell him I need intense emotional support because the urge to post another chapter is already creeping up on me and it's been less than 24 hours. I CANNOT FALL INTO THIS SAME FUCKING TRAP AGAIN. Like I just assumed if I reworked an old fic I would throw it on post schedule and contain the same amount of self restraint that I do with my other fics but the literal worms in my brain are like *dont be shy post like 17 chapters in two hours* LIKE WHAT.

Excuse me, I'm busy being insane bc I have literally been up since three (it could have been 1:30, but I honestly can't recall) this morning LMFAO.

9:07 pm update: I took a nap to try and reduce the pure insanity I was dealing with it and I just opened my google doc and realized I'm about to start book 2. GUYS. Book two was by far my absolute fucking favorite. Like, I loved book 2. Frankly, want to make everything else feel more like book 2 bc AHHHHH IT WAS MY FAVORITEEEEE IDC WHAT ANYONE SAYS LMFAO

10:07: I just want you guys to know I reread Craig's chapter, yes his chapter, bc he now longer gets a little separated paragraph, but a chapter, and Heart to Heart came on and I started crying. And then proceeded to reread Tweek's end chapter and We'll Meet Again came on and I'm actually ready to throw up LMFAOOOOOO

(I wrote them before I went to sleep and I had to make sure they read well and blah blah whatever and now I'm just SAD. But also, what the fuck did I expect? This is what happens when you write a sad story with happy little stickers on it and a main character who despite everything wants nothing more than to be optimistic.)

9:18pm hi guys I am on my way home and yall are gonna HEAR IT IN MY END NOTES TONIGHT HOLY SHIT I GAVE TO PROOFREAD DANDELION I AM REALIZING THIS AS I TYPE IM GONNA BE SICK

anyways

I am here to rant bc I was just talking about it DOES ANYONE ELSE dislike when Bebe is portrayed as like an angel or like the opposite end of the spectrum and like straight up mean

LIKE I JUST WANNA SEE HER GIRLBOSS AND PEOPLE DO NOT WRITE HER LIKE THAT ANYMORE CAN I PLS GET SOME SUPER DYNAMIC GIRLBOSS BEBE RECS LMFAOOOOO

[tobns]

Hi! Zero pressure at all but I wanted to see if you were still planning on continuing with your Tobin and Christen Taylor anthology? I loved the first two so much and it would make me so happy to get more of your fantastic writing ☺️. Hope everything is well with you!!

listen, i am SO GLAD!!!! SOMEONE ASKED ABOUT THIS!!!! BECAUSE I FEEL SO HORRIBLE ABOUT IT and i really don't go on the twitter i advertised in the a/n nowadays (pls feel free to follow me @/missemericana i will know where you came from 🫡) thank you so much for caring about it and caring about the writer, ur too kind and it means a lot to me 🥹

but yES! i have been slaving away on it since — i had a few snafus between december (how has it been that long) and now, such as: grad school and work combo kicking my ass, my computer SHATTERING!, being in a wreck (i am healthy as a little horse i promise it just ruined my car and therefore ramped my anxiety up through the roof for like 3 weeks straight), traveling, and not knowing where the time goes. it also does not help that for chapter three, which is the anti hero chapter, i have basically gone about writing a full length standalone fic? like, i wish i could say i was kidding when i say this chapter is probably going to clock in at 30, 40k at the minimum? and i have two other tobin/christen fics i want to write, so when i say i have absolutely zero plans to abandon that world, i mean it. i've got so much stuff i wanna write for them — this is legit the first time since like, 2020 i've been balls to the wall inspired to just write like my fingers are going to fall off

sending you all my love and i promise, you will see an ao3 update from me soon!

[goshdarnitjay]

Hello! From your patreon here! Just saw the new post of you informing us that lhsd is finally finished! First of all I would like to thank you for your dedication to this fic! We have finally made it! I remember reading the first chapter in one of your one shot stories on ao3 and becoming completely obsessed with the au. Hearing you deciding to continue the story on tumblr had me so excited that it prompted me to join your patreon and I have not regretted it since. How long has it been? Almost a year now I think? But oh boy has it been a wild ride. Love the little snippets and I just cannot wait for the entire fic!

Also may I just ask what other fics are you planning to work on after this? I do know that there are some prompts you probably have piled to work on but if my memory does not fail me there is another werewolf fic that is not in the same au as lhsd you said your were working on? Also will you start posting snippets of these other stories once we catch up with the posting schedules of lhsd on patreon? What is the plan?

Hello! Thanks so much for stopping by! and for supporting me for such a long time. I appreciate it! It's been a wild ride for me, too. Finishing lhsd is a huge relief, like it always is when i finish a big project.

i'm considering posting snippets of the new stories once lhsd has been published in its entirety, but i haven't decided yet. lhsd was already p long by the time i decided to start posting snippets. i may post only one snippet per week, or i may reduce the length of the snippets to give myself breathing room to write.

for anyone who doesn't wanna be spoiled on future projects, i'm putting the rest under a cut 👆👉

I'm already working on another story that i started a while ago. and you're right, it's a prompt from one of my patrons who I've been neglecting because of lhsd (it's a cute one-shot about yelena taking care of Kate. I think it'll be about 10-15k in total). and yes, afterwards i'll write another werewolf au for another one of my patrons. that one, i'm not sure about. might be 30-40k in total. after that, I've got a one-shot for one of my friends, which is from lucky's pov. beyond that, I don't have anything in the works just yet. 😇💚💜

[rolloollor]

I made it to 20k on the vampire au this week, hooray~ I think it's going well, though I don't know like... if it'll match what people are expecting. That's always a mystery. Also, I did end up adding some Rollo POV parts. I love his POV too much. I like Malle's too, but Rollo's my favorite. My aim is for the fic to be somewhere around 30-40k, I don't want this to be novel-length if I can avoid it. But who knows... I'm trying to keep the amount of characters down which usually means it'll be shorter.

One thing about having a human Malleus is that Silver and Sebek naturally would have to be children in comparison and Lilia would have to be old as hell. Would change the dynamic.

If nothing else, I'm pretty sure it'll be finished before Bound by Briar is done posting (barring something catastrophic). That'll be in late May, so that's a good amount of time.

[soulhusbands]

"He imagined family would be like this, when he was growing up. Sitting around a table, playing games and not cleaning weapons, laughing and teasing and not conjugating Latin verbs. He wonders if he could fit into this picture, Dean and his friends, this small town. If Dean would let him."

What Remains by merrin

Podfic by litrapod

Sam/Dean

Au - Canon divergent

Amnesia - Outsider POV

Explicit

39k

[more on pinboard]

[blood-mocha-latte]

31, 32, 45 for the fic writer ask game please! If you've answered any already, swap in a random one.

dsafhdad <3

31. What’s your ideal fic length to write?

god i fucking LOVE writing like. 30-40k oneshots that is the Dream so beautiful so good so pleasing to finally finish

32. What’s your ideal fic length to read?

literally any length ever. if it's a fic and it has my Guys in it it's my ideal fic length i go feral over everything

45. What’s something you’ve improved on since you started writing fic?

my line of reasoning is like. much better. internal character motivation. Thought Processes

ao3 writer ask game!

[astramthetaprime]

Pathfinder and Turning Points

22,000 Words. 53 single-spaced pages so far.

So much has happened already in this story that I find it hard to believe it's only 22k words. It simply doesn't sound plausible that it's only 22k words. But on the other hand, it is only approximately halfway done, so maybe it's a good sign that it will end up being over that magic finish line of 50k+ to be a true novel.

When I was 30 years old I wrote a 300k Star Wars: Phantom Menace fanfic monstrosity called The Way of the Myistics. That was 24 years ago now. A few years later, I wrote a pair of original cyberpunk novels, the first 52k and the sequel 180k. There was a young-adult sci-fi novel that I forget exactly the word count. Then it was like some kind of switch had been thrown and I haven't written anything beyond about 40k ever since. It seemed like my natural story length had converged on the novella, and that was that. The last NaNoWriMo I did ended up being 8300 words. I finished the outlined story and it was inexplicably a short story.

And that was Watchtower. For which I am writing the sequel at this very moment, Pathfinder.

I've always thought the highest, most noble way to participate in fandom was to contribute to that great river of words from which it sprang. In the beginning were the words, the people who read and believed in those words, and the connections they made in the letters columns of Uncle Hugo's magazine. Fandom began with stories of the fantastic and the future. There is no higher calling to me than to continue that ancient tradition of storytelling that our species has relied upon for possibly hundreds of thousands of years.

How else are we supposed to chart our course into the future than by the rumors we tell each other around the fire or the dinner table or in the pages of a book?

Maybe it's just hubris on my part. I dunno, I'm just a writer. All I know is that making these stories gives me life. These little leaves cast upon the ocean of night.

[weatherman667]

40k Games and their Weapons

Boltgun

The Holy Bolter. Standard .998" Godwyn pattern, used by Astartes. Both Space Marine and Boltgun protray them well. The main difference is that Boltgun gives you 25 rounds / mag, while Space Marine gives you 30. Both of those are valid. 30 is the standard by most assault rifles, while 20-25 is more common with the higher power battle rifles. To explain how powerful the Godwyn Boltgun is, we have to start with the difference between a rifle and a rifled cannon is 12.7mm / .50". Anything beyond that is considered a cannon. The Bolt part of the Boltgun means it can dramatically reduce the barrel length without any loss to power, accuracy, or range. But the impact? HEDP. A penetrating head followed by a delayed explosive charge, to maximize the damage to the target.

The closest we have is probably the Bushmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster, a 25mm cannon.

Whether it's an Assault Rifle or a Battle Rifle is an open question.

The other main difference is usage. Titus carries double frontline ammunition. Caedo carries frontline ammunition and refuses to use his optics. I have known soldiers to eschew anything other than iron sights, but the optics are built into your helmet! Titus doesn't even use a helmet, and still uses his optics.

Deathwatch: Tyranid Invasion actually uses Rapid Fire rules, and fires on Repetition beyond 50% of your range, and Automatic within 50%. I honestly can't think of a single other game that recognizes this.

The other main difference is ammuntion. Titus can use Kraken Bolts. They have higher penetration, and a slightly slower cycle rate. If you combine it with Bolter Targeting, then you get an incredibly accurate weapon that can accurately burst fire at nearly infinite range.

Caedo finds alternate ammo magazines, and acts like a toddler unwrapping a present, and puts it in and readies it right away. This makes the Bolter too valuable to use a lot of the time. Luckily for us, Caedo has no problem carrying an arsenal. They also added armour penetrating ammo, but decided to not make them the Kraken Bolts, which I constantly forget about and it sometimes legitimately pisses me off. This is like the biggest change from canon.

Plasmagun

The standard anti-armour weapon of martyrs. In the OTT, you can either do a regular or overcharge attack. Overcharge does a lot more damage but if you roll a 1 on the hit roll you heat it passed it's containment threshold, and get hit by the tank-busting plasma.

Captain Titus has enough skill that he knows when to pop the heat sinks and give up. This allows it to be used for both rapid attacks or heavy hitters. Notably, when charging it, it builds it heat. And this shows you very clearly how easy it is to mess up the heat build up if you take too long to aim.

Caedo seems to do semi-charges. It still has S:7, (standard strength for Plasma), but giving it a small AoE. This means you can't use it at close range, or rapidly, but he gets a lot more of every shot without coming close to risking an overheat. He seems to flatout refuse to do a full overcharge, which, in all honesty? Is probably the right answer.

Tyranid Invasion kind of inverted it. The weapon can overheat on any attack, and if it does, you can't use it until your next turn. This actually works very well with the AP system it has, but has the paradox of having overcharge attacks have a lower chance of overheating the weapon than regular attacks do. Overcharge attacks take all of your remaining AP, which means you can't duck back around cover. This makes it dangerous in a different way.

Meltagun

One of the only things I hate about Space Marine is that they tried to turn the Melta into a shotgun, because there isn't a shotgun equivalent. They could have used a Flamer, but instead decided to use the Melta, forever messing with how Meltas works.

Meltas are effectively High Explosive Anti-Tank shells put into a weapon form. It fires a concentrated beam of superheated gasses contained by a magnetic field. This is what gives it it's phenominal armour penetration. In the OTT, it's one of the few weapons that has the highest level of armour penetration.

Boltgun was making an homage to Space Marine, so I can't fault them for using a similar premise. They give it a cylinder AoE instead of a cone. This is much more useful. The cone was to make it so that Assault Marines can roll out of way of the Melta, because Space Marine was all about balance.  Boltgun's is much more useful.

The winner is Tyranid Invasion, which doesn't even have an armour penetration mechanic. Meltas have a small charge up before firing a small beam at the target.

Because Space Marine and Boltgun give it a wide area of effect, they have to otherwise cripple it. The balancing part is that meltas have half the range of Boltguns, and Inferno Pistols have half the range of Bolt PISTOLS. Instead Space Marine gives it a large dead zone, and Boltgun gives it extremely limited ammunition. If they didn't force the issue, it would make a fantastic main weapon. Boltgun, for whatever reason, decided to use 5 units of fuel with each shot, which gives you 2 shots off a single magazine, and 8 in total.

Vengeance Launcher

Only approved for trial on Graia. The Vengence Launcher is a command-detonated grenade launcher.

Space Marine was using altenate attack for reload, so you couldn't reload a weapon if you use alt-attack for something else. In Space Marine, it was balanced for PvP, which has people moving in ways that only make sense in first person shooters.

Boltgun's is instead balanced to use PvE. It's far easier to use on a dynamic battlefield, and the fact you can reload it means you can carry more ammo for it than you could otherwise. If you carried double frontline ammo, it would be usable as a main weapon. Caedo uses it as a simple delayed explosive, but this delay allows you to use it point blank. It has a mild knockback, and lets you get out of range before it blows.

Heavy Boltgun

The big brother of the bolter. Unfortunately in the OTT they great this like a light machinegun rather than the ridiculous autocannon it really is. Captain Titus treats the Heavy Boltgun as if it was something that should properly be reserved for Devastators. He only uses it temporarily.

Malum Caedo, however, is a Sternguard Veteran, which are perfectly allowed to carry them.

In Space Marine, the Heavy Boltgun has a variable cycle rate. While real machineguns have variable cycle rate, they are instead used incase your gas cycle system is getting clogged. While technically difficult, there is really nothing hard about making a weapon work like this. Alt-Fire has you take a braced stance and increase the cycle rate. This is how regular machineguns actually work. They pick a Lay, a combination of siting and sighting, and fire down that line. This is because machineguns are LINEAR area of effect weapons. They are most effective when fired in defilead, (to protect from incoming fire), to fire in enfilead, (getting your enemies into a line). The easieset way to do this is either fire from the flanks, or lure your enemy into an enfilead.

Caedo, on the other hand, just goes Rambo with it. When he fires, there is a short period where he lines up the heavy weapon, his movement speed is restricted, and the weapon is powerful enough to push him backwards. Boltgun has a lot of places that are perfect for drawings enemies into enfilead and then mowing them down.

Stormbolter

Sadly absent from Boltgun. The Boltgun is universally the most balanced, meaning generally useful weapon for every combat situation. So, the best thing you can do with a Boltgun is have two of them and guntape them together. Luckily that is what a Stormbolter is. The Codex indicates that it's simply too difficult for most Astartes to use properly. Instead it's limited to Sergeants and Veterans.

Space Marine purposefully balances it. This contradits the Codex, but what they did was allow you to do a lot of damage over a short period of time. After which the weapon was no longer pointing anywhere near where you wanted to be. This because Space Marine added recoil. People might immediately think it's recoil, but one of the points of the Boltgun is to dramatically limit the amount of recoil. Maybe the 25mm cannon still has ridiculous recoil after being dramatically reduced. In Space Marine, this works wonderfully, as the characters are FPS PC's moving in ways that only make sense for FPS PC's. Time on target is extremely small, and so you need as much firepower as you can get. Sadly, when used at range, the rapid fire makes it difficult to get most of our bolts on target.

The main reason it's not in Boltgun is because there is no recoil. Caedo could easily annihilate his enemies with a Stormbolter. Well, there's always hope for the sequel.

Stalker (pattern) Boltgun

A Boltgun turned into a Tactical Marksman Rifle. Silencer, enhanced optics. Each bolt hits harder, but the mag size is limited to 10. Space Marine turns the Armour into a recharging shield, (still call armour), a single headshot from any bolt weapon will kill any Marine with a broken shield. It takes two Stalker Bolts to break the shield. One of the Multiplayer upgrades fires two bolts per shot. There is climb. If you aim for centre of mass, the two shots will lift you up to about head-level. It only takes one shot. Because of this, if they know someone is watching with a Stalker Boltgun, they will NEVER stand still on a point that is visible to your vantage point. This is called Suppression, which Space Marine's multiplayer doesn't give you points for, you fucking assholes!

Plasma Cannon

Like the Plasmagun, but fit for a Devastator. It does all of the wonderful Plasmagun things, just bigger, better, and more explodey, (both in the good and bad way).

Lascannon

The only weapon in Space Marine without a hit-aiming reticle. For about a week, I was good enough to no-sight them from my hip, but other than that it's almost impossible. This makes up for it with a LOT of power. It is designed to take out tanks, afterall, but it does work well as a sniper rifle. A headshot from will kill any Marine, other than those with Iron Halos. Even if you don't kill them with your first shot, they will be wounded and prey for anyone with a single bolt.

Gravcannon

GW has a strange relationship with Grav weapons. On one hand they are a forgotten technology, and the ones we have a venerated god-machines. On the other hand, they are just, if not more available than the other weapons. Only Blood Angels can use Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols, but every Sergeant can have a Grav pistol if they want.

In Boltgun, the Grav Cannon is the big daddy of all weapons. The weapon saved for bosses, and it does a LOT of damage. It's strength explicitly increases with the enemy's toughness. This is what a Grav Cannon is supposed to do.

Volkite Caliver

The Martian Deathray. This is the most useful, balanced weapon outside of the Boltgun. The big difference is that you burn through ammo way too quickly. Technically, the light machinegun version, but that's not going to slow you down. You can use it as sweeping rays of doom. You can use it as a penetrating way. You can use it against swarms. You can use it against tough enemies. It has S:6, meaning it deals great damage to everything but bosses, and still does decent damage to bosses. It doesn't have the slow down of Heavy Boltguns, it's ammo isn't as precious as the Grav Cannon, but still pretty precious. It can be used in close-range without any consequences. It can sweep through enemy ranks without risk of getting hit by the AoE.

Volkite weapons are also ALMOST lost technology, so the only reason you can use it is that Graia is a Forgeworld.

[bladeweaver-if]

How long do you expect the book to be?

At this point I'm not entirely sure - My current hope is that the full thing would come to around 400-500k words with ~14 chapters at around 30-40k words each, but that's definitely not set in stone since chapters will certainly vary in length and content.