Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

So in other words:

There are no ranged weapons in WH40k, just long spears that have been cleverly renamed 'ranged weapons'.

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

Well since 40k never defined what an attack is and how long a turn is (but how quickly can you run 48 yards), an attack could be a single shot, a clip, or more.

Actually I'm being unfair an automatic weapon can fore twice at half range (24 yards)!

But yeah 40k is basically "wait until you see the white's* of their eyes"


Of course as said there's the inherent table top issue that you are actually fighting on a table top.

Or red's, or green's or tentacles of their eyes

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

You ask this question on knives and gun fights but is it for tabletop purposes or fluff purposes? Because the tabletop rules don't really reflect the fluff for 40K. It's the same reason why we shouldn't assume battlemechs from Battletech only have 90-meter range machine guns.

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

I've played Rogue Trader RPG, and skimmed Dark Heresy RPG. The allegedly 'rapid firing' weapons are not what they call themselves. Ranges are meh too, but I don't remember the numbers.

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

Someone using a rifle in dark heresy has a pretty good chance of being able to attack, with a meaningful hit chance, at 400 meters. Not amazing, but compared to a movement rate that's generally 8-16 meters/turn when running, there's still plenty of time to hit and kill a charging foe unless there's terrain preventing you from engaging them.

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

For whatever reason 40K always made me think of late 19th century warfare for some reason, probably that officers tend to have a sword and pistol. Though bayonets are seemingly rare in the 40K universe, which seems a bit odd. I've found this video to be a fairly good explanation of why one would want both a firearm and either sword or bayonet in late 19th century warfare, I wonder how much of it could reasonably be applied to 40K as a setting?

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

They're available in the tabletop, though they're chainswords because who would have a simple knife when you can have a chainsaw attached to your gun?

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

The ones in the RPGs are pretty reasonable (it all depends on what you firing at) the problem that they have is they have to fit on scale of lots of weird and wonderful weapons, so the basic auto gun is a it lack lustre. The TL in the setting is all over the place. (The original rogue trader has stats for black powder muskets).

The RPGs and the TT do rather differ in this, the stuff I posted above is more relevant to the TT than the RPG.

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

That's really only if you're a Space Marine. Guardsmen just use the standard knife bayonet we all think of regarding bayonets while Sisters of Battle use some sort of elegant but tough blade for their bayonets called a sarissa.

Re: Who brings a knife to a gun-fight?
 

The advantages of a bayonet over a sword are less weight, less cost, and better ability to keep your opponent at a distance. Space Marines have powered armour which makes the weight saving fairly irrelevant, and presumably costs enough to make the cost a minor issue. And the setting's all about close-in brutality in combat.