Adolf Brittlers Big Iron
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

tl;dr: Thing plays itself. The mobility and versatility makes this the best ranged option for Veteran. Just be mindful of the ranged damage drop off.

Why Play This Build?

• Fantastic Damage: Completely outclasses the Helbore and Infantry Lasgun at close and medium range.
• Top-Tier Mobility: Easily the best mobile ranged setup available to the Veteran.
• Great Ammo Economy: Easily sustain and shoot to your hearts content. 
• Skill Based Gameplay Synergy: Body shots clear targets fast, while headshots reward you with essential resource generation. Dodge attacks for functionally infinite ammo!
• Effortless Fun Playstyle: Fluid, fast-paced, and highly rewarding once you hit your rhythm.

How to Play

• Your Primary Role: Beam everything with the Laspistol at short to medium range. Reserve long range shooting for high priority targets like specials and active ranged threats. 
• Carapace Threat: Shoot at the heads of everything except Maulers and Plasma Gunners, which are body shots. We fight Crushers with our Power Sword or with Kraks!
• Aim Discipline: Headshots are crucial! Since we are so good at killing everything with body shots, it can be easy to forget that we do need headshots for Marksman's Focus stacks and stamina generation. Not to mention Exhilarating Takedown.
• Mind the Range: Keep distance drop-off in mind. If you miss headshots at longer ranges, targets you normally one-shot can take a surprising amount of body shots to kill.

Thoughts on Talents

• Grenades: Take any grenade that you want. Just remember that in Auric and similar Grenade Tinkerer is not required when running Kraks!
• Trench Fighter Drill: Can be safely dropped on Auric and similar. 
• Withering Fire: This is a dead node on anything above Auric. But in Auric it is a fun pick up, as you can hit two horde enemies with one shot. 
• Fully Loaded: On anything below Havoc 30, you won't need Fully Loaded at all. However, it can feel very comfy to have on higher difficulties.
• Duck and Dive: Whilst you could theoretically drop Duck and Dive on lower difficulties I'd recommend against it. As the 5% movement speed is felt when fighting with the Power Sword, and the +30% Stamina on Dodge is a great quality of life feature to maintain Deadshot.

Thoughts on the Laspistol

• Blessings: I found both DumDum and Infernus to be subpar for what the Laspistol needs to do, unless I am missing something. But since they are practically the only damage Blessings available, feel free to try them out. Also, Ghost is a fantastic blessing. You can run around like Lucky Luke, so long as you hit your headshots. Just keep in mind you are not dodging ranged whilst immune to range, so our ammo economy will take a small hit.  
• Rending: I see a lot of Laspistol builds take Rending, but I don't understand why. Your damage against Carapace remains subpar even with Rending, while your damage against Flak is already excellent without it. I much prefer taking more melee damage nodes and play to the strengths of the Power Sword against Carapace instead. You could spec out of melee and take Rending + Onslaught but that's dropping a lot of melee utility for still sub-par Crusher damage. 

Thoughts on the Power Sword

• Blessings: You can run Slaughterer or a Sunder setup if you want (I swap them around). However, I get the most safe and consistent clear with Brutal Momentum on higher difficulties.
• Perks: Mandatory Carapace damage and then whatever secondary perk you want.
• Alternative Weapons: Any melee weapon capable of dealing with Crushers can work as well. But none compare to the Power Sword.
• Crusher TTK: With the setup given you reliably kill Crushers in two combos when at max Skirmisher stacks in Havoc 40.

Weaknesses

• Ranged Drop-off: Severe damage decay at longer ranges requires extra follow-up shots.
• Skirmisher Reliant: Not having max Skirmisher stacks can be felt immediately when shooting at range.
• Hard-Capped by Carapace: Ranged options fail against Crushers, forcing you into melee.
• Headshot Reliance: Requires consistent headshot precision to maintain optimal stamina generation and Marksman's Focus stacks.