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This is from another thread. Personally, I find the pricing on these two weapons absurd. The 12" range on the scatterlaser easily dominates the AP4 and rending on the assault cannon. The IoM can't even amass enough assault cannons to make the rending consistent and worthwhile anyway. Assault cannon... so bad.

I think the Scat laser is better, but only because its cheaper and can be spammed so easily. If SM Bikers could upgrade their TL bolters to an assault cannon for 10ppm they would be just as good.

the real benefit of a scat laser over an Assault cannon though is that 12inches is really important. Most weapons have 24in range or better, or they are 18 with assault weapons so that the -6 isn't as important. At 36in range though the Scat laser (especially mounted on a jetbike) is borderline untouchable by most troop choices and requires specialists to kill them.

Bad things happen at 24", but no one seems to believe me on that.

IMO Rending and the AP4 is useful enough for Assault Cannons to be worthwhile. Necron Warriors are a common foe, and are 4+.

It's also a false comparison in the first place. A unit/army that can take an Assault Cannon cannot otherwise take a Scatter Laser instead. I compare the Assault Cannon most often to the Lascannon, since both are an option on Razorbacks.

Point values and weapons are all context dependent.

The Assault Cannon is a dramatically more powerful and versatile weapon. I'd take the 24" range with Rending and AP4 most times over the 36" range on the Scatterlaser all else being equal. The ability to threaten just about anything, and be a better heavy tank killer than a Lascannon, gives it tons of high quality versatility. It's a beast of a weapon. That is not to say that the 36" range on the Scatterlaser isn't powerful, it is, but the versatility of the Assault Cannon is tremendously powerful in its own right.

The bigger issue is that the Assault Cannon is only available in small numbers on a limited number of platforms, while the Scatterlaser can be found attached to just about everything, and usually is. The Scatterlaser is simply available on too many platforms and at too low a price. Take it off the Jetbikes, bump it by 5-10pts depending on platform, and it ceases to be an issue as one then actually has to think about the choices offered rather than just defaulting to the cheap "I can do most things" gun.

 Insectum7 wrote:
IMO Rending and the AP4 is useful enough for Assault Cannons to be worthwhile. Necron Warriors are a common foe, and are 4+.

It's also a false comparison in the first place. A unit/army that can take an Assault Cannon cannot otherwise take a Scatter Laser instead. I compare the Assault Cannon most often to the Lascannon, since both are an option on Razorbacks.

Point values and weapons are all context dependent.

It's not false because they are both in the game. I could ally in Eldar to get scatterlasers as well. Everything is available to everyone.

Also, you guys put a lot of stock in rending on a measly four shots. Add in any cover and your AP 4 and rending get a lot less valuable to boot.

Martel732 wrote:
Bad things happen at 24", but no one seems to believe me on that.

Depends on where you stand.

From where I stand GOOD things happen within 24", because that is the range of the almighty Grav Cannon.

"The bigger issue is that the Assault Cannon is only available in small numbers on a limited number of platform"

And those platforms all suck. I guess free razorbacks don't, but those are myth to non-vanilla marines.

Martel732 wrote:

It's not false because they are both in the game. I could ally in Eldar to get scatterlasers as well. Everything is available to everyone.

A meltagun is a lot less useful on a unit that has to walk, and a lot more useful on a unit arriving in a Drop Pod.

Martel732 wrote:
"The bigger issue is that the Assault Cannon is only available in small numbers on a limited number of platform"

And those platforms all suck.

Ha Ha Ha. Nay. Those platforms are all FREE

Yeah, this is a question of parsing hairs...both weapons are close-ish enough that any meaningful differences are going to come from the mount, not the weapon.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Yeah, this is a question of parsing hairs...both weapons are close-ish enough that any meaningful differences are going to come from the mount, not the weapon.

Well, and the inexplicable price difference.

That price difference is the key here. Assault Cannons are universally 20 and Scatterlasers are 10 everywhere.

So, for every Assault Cannon, you get 2 Scatterlasers. AP4 is nice but cover can ruin that and you would have twice the amount of shots. Due to the higher cost as well, they can't be spammed as AT either. Scatterlasers are the all-around weapon. They're cheap, have great range, strength, and high rate of fire.

Martel732 wrote:
And those platforms all suck. I guess free razorbacks don't, but those are myth to non-vanilla marines.

DA can get free Razorbacks as well. I've been toying with building my army up to a full Battle Company.

Back on topic, it's pretty stupid that Eldar can spam a powerful weapon like the Scatter Laser. At the very least, their jetbikes should be Fast Attack like everyone else's bikes (except vanilla SM's, and they have to take a bike character to get bike troops. Eldar don't.). This is the main problem with Eldar jetbikes: they get ObSec in addition to being cheap, having powerful weapons, and being so fast they are hard for other armies to ever catch. Full Battle Company SM can spam AssCans, but they have to pay 20 points a pop for them and they don't have the range that Scatterlasers do. For White Scars, this is less of a problem since you can Scout your Razorbacks forward and get those cannons in range.

It's also easy to keep an av 11 vehicle from shooting.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
At the very least, their jetbikes should be Fast Attack like everyone else's bikes (except vanilla SM's, and they have to take a bike character to get bike troops.

There are about 8 billion ways to get around this using formations. I see your vanilla SM and raise you a Ravenwing.

Assault cannons are IMO stronger but because Eldar have such better platforms for Scatterlasers they end up overshadowing Assault Cannons

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
At the very least, their jetbikes should be Fast Attack like everyone else's bikes (except vanilla SM's, and they have to take a bike character to get bike troops.

There are about 8 billion ways to get around this using formations. I see your vanilla SM and raise you a Ravenwing.

This is true. I myself love playing Ravenwing, but I only wish my Ravenwing had ObSec. That would make them really amazing. As it is, they're still good, but beatable. And they sure as hell can't JSJ, shoot stuff from 36" (other than HB attack bikes, but who takes those?), or turbo boost 36". AND they only cost 2 points less per model (without special weapons) than a Scatbike.

 Insectum7 wrote:
IMO Rending and the AP4 is useful enough for Assault Cannons to be worthwhile. Necron Warriors are a common foe, and are 4+.

It's also a false comparison in the first place. A unit/army that can take an Assault Cannon cannot otherwise take a Scatter Laser instead. I compare the Assault Cannon most often to the Lascannon, since both are an option on Razorbacks.

Every time AP4 comes up people say "well Necron warriors are 4+" ignoring the fact that they get an additional save that you can't ignore, and the rest of the army (the dangerous stuff) is 3+ or 2+. Not to mention those warriors are usually hidden in their AV13 4HP skimmer transport that revives dead warriors. You mentioned something about context?

Can terminators take lascannons? They can take Assault Cannons so your comparison is bad by your own standards.

Martel732 wrote:
It's also easy to keep an av 11 vehicle from shooting.

It's easy to make Jetbikes Jink, too.

Otherwise this sounds like: "The Assault Cannon sucks in comparison to what is widely considered to be the most imbalanced unit in the game." Which is pointless.

Scatter Lasers are good because you can load up on a ton of them. Assault Cannons are better against a wider variety of targets, but are more rare.

Within the Marine book, Assault Cannons are better than Lascannons against both Vehicles AND Infantry, but have less range. Lascannons are 20 Points, Assault Cannons are (mostly) 20 Points. Fair enough.

In The Eldar book, Scatter Lasers compete very favorably with the other Eldar heavy weapons. Kicking it up 5 points wouldn't hurt.

But IMO the Assault Cannon remains the superior weapon because of it's higher AP and Rending, even though it has shorter range. Marines are quite happy at mid-short range firefights, and the Assault Cannon has good synergy with that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MarsNZ wrote:

Every time AP4 comes up people say "well Necron warriors are 4+" ignoring the fact that they get an additional save that you can't ignore, and the rest of the army (the dangerous stuff) is 3+ or 2+. Not to mention those warriors are usually hidden in their AV13 4HP skimmer transport that revives dead warriors. You mentioned something about context?

? Context ?

Like how despite Reanimation Protocols the Assault Cannon remains better at killing Warriors than a Scatter Laser (twice as good, to be exact), and can hurt an AV 13 vehicle while the Scatter Laser cannot.

 MarsNZ wrote:

Can terminators take lascannons? They can take Assault Cannons so your comparison is bad by your own standards.

Well I did say Razorbacks, didn't I? Regardless, they're both weapons in the same codex. I think that's more relevant than comparing weapons across codexes. The question: "Why is my Battlecannon not as good as an Ion Accelerator?" is beside the point.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That price difference is the key here. Assault Cannons are universally 20 and Scatterlasers are 10 everywhere.

So, for every Assault Cannon, you get 2 Scatterlasers.

This is wrong. You don't get scatter lasers at a 2:1 ratio because you also have to buy the model carrying the scatter laser. You can't just dump a pile of 50 scatter lasers onto the table and say "I win".

Scatter lasers are better than assault cannons. You should put scatter lasers against gravs.

 Peregrine wrote:
You can't just dump a pile of 50 scatter lasers onto the table and say "I win".

But i thought that's how you play eldar. Ah, they tricked me again!

This again? Sigh.

Scatbikes are broken, who knew.

On paper the assault cannon is better then the scatter laser. The reason the scatter laser seems over powered is because of two things

1)The ease of availability of them, eldar bikes can take them so its very cheap and easy to amass a lot of them, compared to the space marines which i think the cheapest would be....terminators?

2) The second reason is because of the platform they are taken on, eldar bikes, which are known to have a crap ton of bull gak to keep them alive and mobile

I am firmly in the camp that Assault Cannons are better that Scatterlasers....if both were 15pts on their respective platforms and said platforms were just as accessible to each army. Sadly this is not the case.

The difference to me (and this is in a vacuum) is the potential for Rending. This can threaten a wider variety of units than just straight str6. If every Space Marine biker could swap their TL bolters for Assault Cannons for only 10pts each, you bet your rear armour plate every Marine Army would have them. And while they would not have the range of Scatterlasers, they would be more durable than Scatterbikes hands down, so getting a smidge closer would not be as horrible for them as say, Shuricannon Windriders (who also have 24" range).

Speaking of the Shuricannon, it is much closer to the Assault cannon. Same range & str, better AP than a Scatter (although only AP5) and has Bladestorm (pseudo-rending). The only real downside is that it is only 3 shots.
If you compare the Assault Cannon to the Shuricannon, it is a much closer match, although the only thing keeping the Shuricannon in the fight is that it costs half the points.

I understand why people want to compare Shuricannons to Heavy Bolters, since they are both the big brothers of their armys' respective signature weapon.
But a much better equivalent would be this:
Shuicannon = Assault cannon - close match with the AC having a power advantage, but the SC having a slight accessibility edge
Scatter laser =/= Heavy Bolter - I won't deny that the SL is waaaaaay better, but both weapons rely on quantity of shots and range, rather then getting luck 6s as the pair above.

-

I've had to do the math on this for Martel twice now, and he still won't believe me.

Consider: To deal a wound you need to roll three dice. To-hit rolls are fairly standardized between assault cannons and scatter lasers, so we can discount those; to-wound rolls are similarly constant between the two weapons because both are Strength 6.

The difference comes down to their interaction with armour saves. A Scatter Laser has no AP value at all, an Assault Cannon is AP4 for most shots and AP2 for 1/6 of shots.

Against targets with an armour save (discounting cover for the moment) of 4+ half of all wounds dealt by a scatter laser are ignored. No wounds dealt by the assault cannon are ignored. The assualt cannon is dealing 2x as many wounds in this case.

Against targets with a better armour save Rending makes a much bigger difference than the "oooh, fishing for sixes, are we?" (/sarcastic posh voice) argument assumes. Best-case scenario for the scatter laser is a target with T4 or lower, so let's do the math on that case for a moment.

Each scatter laser hit has to pass a 2+ to wound roll and a 2+ save on the target, for an average of 5/36 (~0.14) unsaved wounds.

Each assault cannon hit that rolls a 2-5 to wound (2/3 of hits) has to pass a 2+ save, but hits that roll a 6 to wound (1/6) don't, so the average is 10/36 (~0.28) unsaved wounds.

The difference is more pronounced for higher-Toughness models, where 6s to wound form a higher percentage of the to-wound rolls.

An Assault Cannon is 1.5-2x as effective as a Scatter Laser against every target in the game (this is a slight exaggeration, it doesn't help much against vehicles with AV10-11). I don't know about you, but I'd take twice the firepower over 12" of range in almost every situation.

The fundamental issue is spammability and ease of access, not the power of the weapon in abstract.

 Peregrine wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That price difference is the key here. Assault Cannons are universally 20 and Scatterlasers are 10 everywhere.

So, for every Assault Cannon, you get 2 Scatterlasers.

This is wrong. You don't get scatter lasers at a 2:1 ratio because you also have to buy the model carrying the scatter laser. You can't just dump a pile of 50 scatter lasers onto the table and say "I win".

Well, I mean, with Jetbikes you basically can

 Peregrine wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That price difference is the key here. Assault Cannons are universally 20 and Scatterlasers are 10 everywhere.

So, for every Assault Cannon, you get 2 Scatterlasers.

This is wrong. You don't get scatter lasers at a 2:1 ratio because you also have to buy the model carrying the scatter laser. You can't just dump a pile of 50 scatter lasers onto the table and say "I win".

Universal cost and stats are still something that can be calculated. If we really wanted to go down your route, the Assault Cannon would lose.

So when I do the math on both, I'm comparing 8 Laser Shots and 4 Assault Shots. I think that makes perfect sense.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That price difference is the key here. Assault Cannons are universally 20 and Scatterlasers are 10 everywhere.

So, for every Assault Cannon, you get 2 Scatterlasers.

This is wrong. You don't get scatter lasers at a 2:1 ratio because you also have to buy the model carrying the scatter laser. You can't just dump a pile of 50 scatter lasers onto the table and say "I win".

Well, I mean, with Jetbikes you basically can

The Land Raider finally gets a day in the sun to laugh off the massed firepower that can't actually hurt it.

(Unless the Eldar player thought to ally in some Corsair jetbikes with Dark Lances.)

All at BS4, of course