Arms Master

When you want to order a Chaplain off from Wish.com. Deal with it.

Arms Masters are House Orlock gang champions, who keep their gangers and juves in line with fear, respect and a variety of deadly weapons.

Overview

They are effectively considered as budget Chaplain or Commissar, as they basically provide the same or similar role in terms of maintaining morale and discipline. As well as enforcing order, they also lead by example, either cracking heads or unleashing their Cyber-Mastiffs on enemy fighters. They are viewed as CQC monsters in both the tabletop and in the fluff.

Given their name, one would have thought that they might be some weapons vendor right? Nope, wrong. Arms Masters are so called that as they are very proficient in the type of weapons they use. Among their weaponry are Arc Hammers, Combat Shotguns, Stub Guns and Cyber-Mastiffs, alongside a belt of Frag, Smokes and Krak Grenades. For defense, they wear segments of Imperial Mesh Armour, specifically one that incorporates an exo-skeleton that covers the shoulders, shins and vambrace as usual.

Crunch

On Necromunda, the Arms Master has very similar stats compared to the Road Sergeant, but their WS is bumped up to a native 3+. They also come with their very own special ability: Rule of Iron. When an Arms Master activates it, they can select a friendly fighter within 6” and give them Nerves of Steel for the rest of the round. Additionally, while the Arms Master is on the table, subtract 2 from any Bottle rolls the gang is required to make.

As you can immediately recognise, the Arms Master is a very useful support and combat unit. So you would want to put him in around their brothers and sisters, as opposed to the more snipe-y Road Sergeant. Arms Masters have a very limited selection from the Armory when compared to Sergeants and Captains: Access to only shotguns, stub guns, combat weapons, and grenades. Because of these limitations, you’ve really only got two choices when it comes to what you want your Arms Master to do: give them a shotgun, the Shotgun Savant skill, and have them be a mid-strength ranged support character. Or you can give them the extremely dangerous arc hammer, Nerves of Steel, and let them be your completely terrifying counter-charger. Either way, you’re going to want to throw some armor and smoke grenades in the mix, and if you’re going with melee, grab yourself a cyber-mastiff to help keep your Arms Master alive.