As title. I thought it might be interesting

Things to consider:
Damage
Range
Ammunition
Accuracy


The races/weapons are:
Space marines of all kinds & SoB/bolter
Gaurd/lasgun
Tau/Pulse Rifle
Eldar/shuriken carapult
Necron/Gauss Flayer
Dark Eldar/Splinter Rifle
Tyranid/Fleshborer
Ork/shoota

(Please correct me if I get anything wrong)

Rank each race's standard weapon based on what?
If we have to rate them based purely on combat performance (power, accuracy etc.) Than I would say the list below:

1. Gauss Flayer
2. Bolter
3. Pulse Rifle
4. Splinter Rifle
5. Shuriken Catapult
6. Fleshborer
7. Lasgun

If other things are taken into consideration however (cost, logistics etc.) the Lasgun would surely rank a lot higher and the Fleshborer would be #1.

Add (ork/shoota) as well?

1. Gauss flayer
2. Shoota
3. Pulse Rifle
4. Shuriken Catapult
5. Bolter
6. Splinter Rifle
7. Fleshborer
8. lasgun

In terms of utility and killing power, divorced from the wielder, and going based on fluff values rather than gameplay?

Judging off a scale of Poor, Fair, Good and High, in terms of stopping power, range, versatility, ammunition capacity and reliability;

1. Gauss Flayer (Good stopping power, good range, high versatility, infinite ammunition, high reliability)
2. Pulse Rifle (High stopping power, high range, good versatility, fair ammunition, good reliability)
3. Shuriken Catapult (Good stopping power, good versatility, high ammunition, poor range, good reliability)
4. Splinter Rifle (High stopping power, good range, poor versatility, good ammunition, good reliability)
5. Bolter (Good stopping power, good range, fair versatility, poor ammunition, poor reliability)
6. Ork Shoota (Good stopping power, fair range, fair versatility, fair ammunition, poor reliability)
7. Lasgun (Fair stopping power, good range, poor versatility, good ammunition, high reliability)
8. Fleshborer (Fair stopping power, poor range, poor versatility, good ammunition, high reliability)

Wow forgot that.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
In terms of utility and killing power, divorced from the wielder, and going based on fluff values rather than gameplay?

Judging off a scale of Poor, Fair, Good and High, in terms of stopping power, range, versatility, ammunition capacity and reliability;

1. Gauss Flayer (Good stopping power, good range, high versatility, infinite ammunition, high reliability)
2. Pulse Rifle (High stopping power, high range, good versatility, fair ammunition, good reliability)
3. Shuriken Catapult (Good stopping power, good versatility, high ammunition, poor range, good reliability)
4. Splinter Rifle (High stopping power, good range, poor versatility, good ammunition, good reliability)
5. Bolter (Good stopping power, good range, fair versatility, poor ammunition, poor reliability)
6. Ork Shoota (Good stopping power, fair range, fair versatility, fair ammunition, poor reliability)
7. Lasgun (Fair stopping power, good range, poor versatility, good ammunition, high reliability)
8. Fleshborer (Fair stopping power, poor range, poor versatility, good ammunition, high reliability)

Pretty much this. Although I'm not sure I agree with Bolters being unreliable.

Bolters are explicitly stated to be unreliable, ornery pieces of kit in several places, most memorably the Necromunda rulebook.

That's one of the reasons they aren't given to Guardsmen casually. They tend to jam or misfire due to the many, many complicated moving parts and highly sensitive nature of the bolt's arming and detonation systems.

Decided to go a little more into detail with mine
Mine:
1or2. Necron/Gauss Flayer:
Another contender for top spot. Quite powerful, with a seemingly unlimited ammunition capacity AFAIK, it can even take on tanks with relative ease.

1or2. Tau/Pulse Rifle:
The Pulse Rifle has been shown in fluff to be the best basic gun available other than the Gauss Flayer (I'm to to sure about them compared to each other). It is even blatantly stated in the tau codex that it is more powerful than the basic gun of any other race. it has a long range and great accuracy. It's canon ammunition capacity is 50 shots for a single charge pack, almost as good as the lasgun's 60, but it is far more powerful.

3. Dark Eldar/Splinter Rifle:
Less powerful than some, but the poison in these things can be deadly with even a small scratch.

4. Eldar/shuriken catapult:
A good weapon with great ammunition capacity, it suffers solely from limited range.

5. Space marines of all kinds & SoB/bolter:
Good all-round weapon suffers mostly from a limited ammunition capacity (15 IIRC) and availability.

6. Tyranid/Fleshborer:
Easly produced ammunition, it suffers from short range, but it's ease of use (for tyranids) helps it greatly in close range (assault).

7. Gaurd/lasgun:
Great ammunition capacity and easly produced, it suffers from being a relatively weak weapon

8. Ork/shoota:
An erratic weapon at best, but still relatively strong.

Pretty much agree with Furyo's list

Gauss flayer. No other basic gun can take out a land raider...

In fact, If memory serves, the first fluff instance of the Gauss Flayer had it punching a hole and blowing up a land raider.

Just want to mention I agree with Miko on this one. Very good rating system.

Also just to throw in, in a ciaphas cain book involving the Tau some guardsmen killed by Tau pulse weapons had their cause of death written off as a plasma gun of some kind. So at least on unarmored guardsmen a pulse rifle has similar damage characteristics to a plasma rifle.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Bolters are explicitly stated to be unreliable, ornery pieces of kit in several places, most memorably the Necromunda rulebook.

That's one of the reasons they aren't given to Guardsmen casually. They tend to jam or misfire due to the many, many complicated moving parts and highly sensitive nature of the bolt's arming and detonation systems.

Hmm, I had never come across that myself. I figured they were just too expensive for the Imperium to produce to be handing out to the common guardsman. The more you know I guess

Fluffwise, the best gun is the Gauss Flayer. I'm not sure what the energy requirements are to completely atomize a one ton space marine, but I'm sure they're ridiculous. Plus, the Gauss Flayer never runs out of ammo, is demonstrably tough enough to be swung around in melee combat (in the Word Bearers' books a Necron Warrior can drive the axe bayonet thing through a Marine's helmet fairly easily), and it invokes sheer, unrelenting terror in the way it kills.

I'd rank it something like this, top to bottom:

Astartes Boltgun/Gauss Flayer (Flayer has more utility due to greater AV capabilities, bolter has better anti-infantry efficiency)
Shuriken and Splinter weapons (Better at piercing armour than boltgun, but loses out in stopping power)
Pulse weapons (Good power, still comparatively lacking in overall efficiency)
Sororitas Boltguns (Like IG ones but higher quality)
Fleshborers (Great power, lacking in range and penetration)
IG Boltguns (All the drawbacks of Astartes Boltguns but smaller and thus weaker)
Lasguns (Comparatively poor damage output, good reliability)

Yes, but that's because you're trying to get a rise out of me by saying Sororitas bolters are less good, when they're not.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, but that's because you're trying to get a rise out of me by saying Sororitas bolters are less good, when they're not.

IIRC, the Sorirtas and Astartes have equivalent bolters, but the Arbites and Guard get the cheap ones.

I imagine SoB and IG have far less deadly Boltguns simply because they are human-sized, and thus fire smaller shells.

The quality of SoB and SM Boltguns seems equivalent though.

Saw this in a FFG book and it seemed more than reasonable to me.

After all, why give your colossal superhuman soldiers normal human guns? It'd be a waste of a heavy firing platform. They can carry and accurately fire bigger guns, after all. It'd be like giving Tyranid Warriors Fleshborers, or like giving your Leman Russ a multilaser turret.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
I imagine SoB and IG have far less deadly Boltguns simply because they are human-sized, and thus fire smaller shells.

The quality of SoB and SM Boltguns seems equivalent though.

Saw this in a FFG book and it seemed more than reasonable to me.

After all, why give your colossal superhuman soldiers normal human guns? It'd be a waste of a heavy firing platform. They can carry and accurately fire bigger guns, after all. It'd be like giving Tyranid Warriors Fleshborers, or like giving your Leman Russ a multilaser turret.

Wrong.

There are two kinds of bolters. Standard bolters that fire a .75 cal shell, and Heavy Bolters, that fire a 1.0 cal shell.

There are many kinds of "specialist" shells that can be used by bolters (Stalker, Inferno, etc.)... but these are all .75 cal rounds fired by a standard bolter, available only to the Astartes by tradition, but fully functional in any bolter that can chamber them (which is all of them).

Also, bolter being better than pulse rifles, no, just no. Pulse rifles have better power, range, ammunition, cost, and availability. In fact, pulse rifles are relatively simple being just a coil gun. The only thing that could possibly make a bolter better is that fact that it is being wielded by a space marine..

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Also, bolter being better than pulse rifles, no, just no. Pulse rifles have better power, range, ammunition, cost, and availability. In fact, pulse rifles are relatively simple being just a coil gun. The only thing that could possibly make a bolter better is that fact that it is being wielded by a space marine..

And the astonishing range of ammunition, which makes the bolter much more versatile than the pulse rifle. For that, I would rank the bolter above the pulse rifle purely based on combat performance, but the pulse rifle does have the advantage of being easier to manufacture, being the Tau's standard weapon, whereas the bolter is an elite weapon.

Pulse Rifle:23
Overall power:5
Anti infantry:4
Anti tank:4
Ammunution (supply and clip size):4
Range:5
Customization:1

Bolter:20
Overall power:3
Anti infantry:3
Anti tank:3
Ammunution (supply and clip size):2
Range:4
Customization:5


Even with Customization at the extremes pulse rilfle still wins.

 Psienesis wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
I imagine SoB and IG have far less deadly Boltguns simply because they are human-sized, and thus fire smaller shells.

The quality of SoB and SM Boltguns seems equivalent though.

Saw this in a FFG book and it seemed more than reasonable to me.

After all, why give your colossal superhuman soldiers normal human guns? It'd be a waste of a heavy firing platform. They can carry and accurately fire bigger guns, after all. It'd be like giving Tyranid Warriors Fleshborers, or like giving your Leman Russ a multilaser turret.

Wrong.

There are two kinds of bolters. Standard bolters that fire a .75 cal shell, and Heavy Bolters, that fire a 1.0 cal shell.

There are many kinds of "specialist" shells that can be used by bolters (Stalker, Inferno, etc.)... but these are all .75 cal rounds fired by a standard bolter, available only to the Astartes by tradition, but fully functional in any bolter that can chamber them (which is all of them).

I guess since a bolter is literally a rapid fire rocket propelled grenade launcher, recoil doesn't really have to be that much of an issue. The initial "bang" only has to get the bolt out of the barrel before the built in rocket engine and stabilization system directs the bolt to the target. Never really thought of it that way. You might even be able to get recoil below modern day combat firearms if you worked at it enough.

The bolter really is 40k in a nutshell...such an absurd, unreliable, and impractical way to kill stuff; but very good at what does.

 Psienesis wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
I imagine SoB and IG have far less deadly Boltguns simply because they are human-sized, and thus fire smaller shells.

The quality of SoB and SM Boltguns seems equivalent though.

Saw this in a FFG book and it seemed more than reasonable to me.

After all, why give your colossal superhuman soldiers normal human guns? It'd be a waste of a heavy firing platform. They can carry and accurately fire bigger guns, after all. It'd be like giving Tyranid Warriors Fleshborers, or like giving your Leman Russ a multilaser turret.

Wrong.

There are two kinds of bolters. Standard bolters that fire a .75 cal shell, and Heavy Bolters, that fire a 1.0 cal shell.

There are many kinds of "specialist" shells that can be used by bolters (Stalker, Inferno, etc.)... but these are all .75 cal rounds fired by a standard bolter, available only to the Astartes by tradition, but fully functional in any bolter that can chamber them (which is all of them).

Eh... I am going with FFG on this one. Seems a lot more plausible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I knew my rating would rustle jimmies, though.

I'd agree with Miko, but I'd put the astartes bolter over the pulse rifle for damage and reliability, as when wielded by space marines, it doesn't tend to suffer any terrible malfunctions, and can be loaded with specialist ammo that almost make it as lethal as a gaus flayer. Might simply be due to Astartes and Sisters pleasing their bolters better with more care to the machine spirit. Or they're just better equipped.

(Would we really be survived if the Astartes and Sisters got the best performing bolters that are both relics and the best functioning ones off the assembly lines, and Guardsmen only get the ones that fail their standards?)

I still don't get that. It has been plainly stated in the fluff that the pulse rifle is better than the bolter. And the pulse rifle has never been seen to have a terrible malfuncions. The bolter is a middling weapon at best.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Pulse Rifle:23
Overall power:5
Anti infantry:4
Anti tank:4
Ammo (supply and clip size):4
Range:5
Customization:1

Bolter:20
Overall power:3
Anti infantry:3
Anti tank:3
Ammo (supply and clip size):2
Range:4
Customization:5
Even with Customization at the extremes pulse rilfle still wins.

I am not sure the difference in overall power is so large. The pulse rifle has a longer range, but otherwise they are of fairly equivelent power.
The thing where the pulse rifle really gets its advantage is in being so common.
I would say it is more like this:

Pulse Rifle:23
Overall power:5
Anti infantry:4
Anti tank:4
Ammunution (supply and clip size):4
Range:5
Customization:1

Bolter:22 (23 depending on magazine size)
Overall power:4
Anti infantry:4
Anti tank:4
Ammunution (supply and clip size):2-3 (depending on the size of the magazine. The largest sickle magazine hold 30 rounds)
Range:3
Customization:5

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'd agree with Miko, but I'd put the astartes bolter over the pulse rifle for damage and reliability, as when wielded by space marines, it doesn't tend to suffer any terrible malfunctions, and can be loaded with specialist ammo that almost make it as lethal as a gaus flayer. Might simply be due to Astartes and Sisters pleasing their bolters better with more care to the machine spirit. Or they're just better equipped.

(Would we really be survived if the Astartes and Sisters got the best performing bolters that are both relics and the best functioning ones off the assembly lines, and Guardsmen only get the ones that fail their standards?)

I will disagree heavily with the reliability. For this I cite the necromunda rulebook. In its armory section bolt weapons are explicitly called out as being a massive PITA to maintain and as such only the richest gangs can afford them because they're so temperamental. They are then given (I believe) the best chance to jam out of any weapon that isn't something like a plasma gun. Certainly very bad anyway.

I would argue that underhive gangs much more adequately represent the conditions most 40k forces would fight under than regular space marines. The average space marine has both the devotion and time to ritually service his weapons regularly. The average ganger will probably give it a spit and polish if the boss is going to be around (or he wants to impress the ladies with his gleaming new bolt gun). Reliability isn't just about combat performance, it's about how much time and effort has to be spent on the weapon to keep it in fighting condition.

That said, I will admit that I don't think GW has ever given an official Necromunda statline for pulse weapons, so I don't know how they rate their reliability in comparison.

Bolter is middling (thus 3). I do think that I should correct bolter overall could be 4, but the pulse rifle is better than normal at both anti-tank and anti-infantry (thus 4). Something like the gauss flayer would be anti-tank 5 and something like the splinter rifle would be anti-inantry 5.
So bolter: 21
Pulse rifle: 23

That's only a difference of 2 out of a possible 30. Th pulse rifle is better, just not exceedingly so (and it was only a difference of 3 before anyway).

Doubt that this is a topic that will ever reach a consensus...

That was kind of the point . This is the stuff I find fun, and I often learn new things (for instance, I didn't know the bolter could have a 30 bolt clip).

Yes bolter unlike some needs a ammunition supply to keep fighting, its complex, ammo is harder to make but as a weapon it as in storm of iron can blow a normal humans body to bloddy chunks.

Very good at what it does, brutal powerful weapon for killing stuff when it absolutely needs to die.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'd agree with Miko, but I'd put the astartes bolter over the pulse rifle for damage and reliability, as when wielded by space marines, it doesn't tend to suffer any terrible malfunctions, and can be loaded with specialist ammo that almost make it as lethal as a gaus flayer. Might simply be due to Astartes and Sisters pleasing their bolters better with more care to the machine spirit. Or they're just better equipped.

(Would we really be survived if the Astartes and Sisters got the best performing bolters that are both relics and the best functioning ones off the assembly lines, and Guardsmen only get the ones that fail their standards?)

I will disagree heavily with the reliability. For this I cite the necromunda rulebook. In its armory section bolt weapons are explicitly called out as being a massive PITA to maintain and as such only the richest gangs can afford them because they're so temperamental. They are then given (I believe) the best chance to jam out of any weapon that isn't something like a plasma gun. Certainly very bad anyway.

I would argue that underhive gangs much more adequately represent the conditions most 40k forces would fight under than regular space marines. The average space marine has both the devotion and time to ritually service his weapons regularly. The average ganger will probably give it a spit and polish if the boss is going to be around (or he wants to impress the ladies with his gleaming new bolt gun). Reliability isn't just about combat performance, it's about how much time and effort has to be spent on the weapon to keep it in fighting condition.

That said, I will admit that I don't think GW has ever given an official Necromunda statline for pulse weapons, so I don't know how they rate their reliability in comparison.

But we aren't judging Guardsmen bolters, we're judging the specially maintained ones utilized by the Astartes that gain special love from Techpriests. Which don't jam at all. And as for killing power, no, Bolters vastly outperform Pulse Rifles, and I'll have to check a friend to see if they have the quote, but I remember Power Armor tanking Pulse Rifle shots with little difficulty. They're certainly better than lasguns or shootas, but certainly below bolters and Dark Eldar rifles (IIRC are those dark matter rifles).
Except in Space Hulk >.<

It should also be noted that the the gold bit on the end of pulse rifles and carbines is a gyro-stabilizer which automatically adjusts to allow easier aiming and compensates for any jittering or twitching by the user.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It should also be noted that the the gold bit on the end of pulse rifles and carbines is a gyro-stabilizer which automatically adjusts to allow easier aiming and compensates for any jittering or twitching by the user.

Which again, is a nonfactor for Astartes. The negatives of a bolter don't threaten Astartes in any way and are far more lethal than pulse rifles, and they rarely experience any mechanical jamming due to the practical fetish they have for maintaining their gear. Pulse Rifles may be a superior weapon for guardsmen and tau, but it won't do much at all for an Astartes. You're better of just taking the Tau railgun and making it fully automatic with a large magazine/belt fed with a power source.

That's kind of what I'm saying. Reliability isn't just measured by how little a weapon jams. Another factor is how much work needs to be done to that weapon to keep it from jamming.

If you're slaving over a bolter for hours of rigorous and technical maintenance to make it have a 100% fire rate, I would argue that it is a significantly less reliable weapon than (say) an autogun that can constantly have a 90%+ fire rate with 15 minutes basic brush down after each fight.

The bolter is an amazing elite weapon because it has special ammo and quite good killing power. It's a horrible basic weapon because it is complicated to make and even worse to keep shooting.

Also I would like a quote on bolt weapons "vastly" outperforming pulse weapons. I will admit that in the game stats bolters are underpowered for what they should theoretically be doing, but the pulse weapon is a mass produced, fully automatic, plasma gun. You're literally flinging bits of stars at the enemy.

Bolters are not stronger than pulse weapons.

 dementedwombat wrote:
That's kind of what I'm saying. Reliability isn't just measured by how little a weapon jams. Another factor is how much work needs to be done to that weapon to keep it from jamming.

If you're slaving over a bolter for hours of rigorous and technical maintenance to make it have a 100% fire rate, I would argue that it is a significantly less reliable weapon than (say) an autogun that can constantly have a 90%+ fire rate with 15 minutes basic brush down after each fight.

The bolter is an amazing elite weapon because it has special ammo and quite good killing power. It's a horrible basic weapon because it is complicated to make and even worse to keep shooting.

Also I would like a quote on bolt weapons "vastly" outperforming pulse weapons. I will admit that in the game stats bolters are underpowered for what they should theoretically be doing, but the pulse weapon is a mass produced, fully automatic, plasma gun. You're literally flinging bits of stars at the enemy.

They punch through power armor consistently and blow open torsos, even having the ability to completely blow up a person's body. Specialist ammunition like hellfire round will reduce you to a pair of legs and a pelvis, and IIRC there was even a corkscrew anti-infantry round that blew shrapnel around everywhere or something like it. Bolter's aren't just a gun like a pulse rifle, they're a warhead devliery system that can be loaded with a massive variety of specialist ammo depending on the job you need done, ranging from boarding ships to hunting down the bigger Tyanird "species". Autocannons are good, but incredibly unwiedly, so much they just flat out ditched them for Termiantors and use Assault Cannons instead.

And autoguns are useless in W40K. They don't do anything against power armor, hell even against Orks they're useless, it simply takes far to many bullets to get the job done. Bolters remain the perfect weapon to arm Astartes with, and outperform pulse rifles, lasguns, and Ork shootas. They're only outdone by Gauss Flayers. The only mistake made was the ditching Volkite guns, which in turn were superior to bolters from what I've heard.

“'I'll never forget the noise,' he said. 'It was like a thunderstorm had suddenly sprung into existence, and our first five ranks were completely cut down, dead to a man without even the time to scream. The enemy's bolts tore limbs from bodies or simply burst men apart like wet sacks. I turned to shout something, I forget what exactly, when I felt a searing pain in the back of my head and I fell over the remains of a man who'd had his entire left side blown off. It looked like he'd exploded from the inside out.” / Tales of Heresy, p.353 - The Last Church

“He swung his bolter up. His weapon had a gash in the metal of the foregrip, the legacy of a greenskin’s axe during Ullanor, a cosmetic mark Loken had told the armourers not to finish out. He began to fire, not on burst, but on single shot, feeling the weapon buck and kick against his palms. Bolter rounds were explosive penetrators. The men he hit popped like blisters, or shredded like bursting fruit. Pink mist fumed off every ruptured figure as it fell.” / Horus Rising, p.25 - **

“Barsabbas reacted as he was drilled, pressuring them witha wide spread of automatic fire. The sudden volley of crackling bolt shells cut out in a semicircle. Rounds so heavy that even their passing shockwave haemorrhaged the brains nd organs of any target in a one-metre radius.” / Blood Gorgons, p.245 - **

“Two more interex soldiers came into view, another sagittar and a gleve. Loken, still running, shot them both before they could react. The force of his bolts, both torso-shots, threw the soldiers back against the wall, where they slithered to the ground. Abaddon had been wrong. The armour of the interex warriors was masterful, not weak. His rounds hadn’t penetrated the chest plates of either of the men, but the sheer, concussive force of the impacts had taken them out of the fight, probably pulping their innards.” / Horus Rising, p.628 - **

“”Brother Vardus opened fire a second later, raking the rear Testudo with an extended burst of heavy bolter fire. The mass-reactive rounds exploded against the APC’s armoured hide and gouged craters in its solid tyres. Here and there the rounds found a seam in the armour plates and penetrated into the APC, wreaking bloody havoc on the men crammed within. The Testudo lurched to a stop, smoke pouring from the holes punched in its side.”
Pg.165 FA

Just gonna point out two things:

1) There is no fluff, at all, that states a Bolter of any sort is more powerful than a Pulse rifle. Certain rounds give them better armour penetration ability, or allow them to compete at the same range, but a standard Bolter is in no way more powerful than a Pulse Rifle.

2) You're assuming every Bolter uses specialised ammunition. This is not the case, and should not be treated as such. For every bolter using specialised ammunition (issued only, AFAIK, to Sternguard Veterans), there will be at least nine more that do not.

By fluff

1. Shuriken Catapult
Last. Everything else.

Shuriken Catapult actually has a great range, like that of a bolter, fires at over 1000 RPM and each shuriken can penetrate several inches of armour. Not only that, but in the hands of the Eldar it's energy efficient and reliable. Basically, being on the receiving end would be akin to becoming red/green/grey mist.

Well, if nothing else cones out of this conversation, I now know the origin of the term "bolter porn". I figure that any conversation you learn something in can't be too bad, but somehow I feel like I have came out the poorer in knowing it.

On the reliability front, even lasguns pale in comparison to gauss flayers - they work fine after millions of years in storage.

With the possible exception of range and accuracy (simply because I've never seen any description of how accurate flayers are), they seem to win in every possible respect. According to the rules pulse rifles might possibly be a bit better, but the background material makes gauss weapons seem much more powerful - pulse rifles at least leave an identifiable corpse.

Eh, what Wyzilla said.

I sure don't see Pulse Rifles knocking humans in PA around.

If Pulse Rifles were so efficient against PA, why did Tau even bother to develop the double Plasma Rifle build (In the fluff, actually) to combat Marines?

Pulse rifles are great, but not that good. They are superior to bolters, but even pulse rifles are not that effective against power armour. Nothing short of a plasma gun is going to be reliably effective against power armour.

Hellguns will do it...

>.>
<.<

*poofs away*

But that's not a basic weapon, now is it?

For the Assault Brigade list, it is

Well we still have better weapons for killing you guys .

 Perfect Organism wrote:
On the reliability front, even lasguns pale in comparison to gauss flayers - they work fine after millions of years in storage.

With the possible exception of range and accuracy (simply because I've never seen any description of how accurate flayers are), they seem to win in every possible respect. According to the rules pulse rifles might possibly be a bit better, but the background material makes gauss weapons seem much more powerful - pulse rifles at least leave an identifiable corpse.

I dunno... the superior range of the pulse rifle on an open field counts for a lot. Being able to blow up tanks is great, but situational, since you have to be close enough to the tank to hit it. In urban warfare, where you can easily get around to the backside, the pulse rifle outperforms the flayer against anything but a Land Raider. The flayer punches through armor because of a trick of physics- its raw power, however, ranks behind the pulse rifle. No standard infantry weapon packs the punch of a pulse rifle.

... especially a shuriken catapult. The shuriken catapult is inaccurate and short-ranged because of the lack of rifling or any sort of gyro-stabilizer, like the pulse rifle has.

My ranking is based primarily on performance against infantry- after all, heavy weapons are needed to engage tanks in most situations, and in close-quarters situations, rear armor is easy to damage.

1. Pulse Rifle
2. Splinter Rifle
3. Gauss Flayer
4. Bolter
5. Shuriken catapult
6. Shoota
7. Fleshborer
8. Flashlight

placed the catapult in front of the shoota based solely on how much more useful it is coming out of a transport. The catapult ranks above the bolter when used by mechanized infantry and is last place on an open battlefield. Even a lasgun is better when you can see the enemy outside of firing range.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Perfect Organism wrote:
On the reliability front, even lasguns pale in comparison to gauss flayers - they work fine after millions of years in storage.

With the possible exception of range and accuracy (simply because I've never seen any description of how accurate flayers are), they seem to win in every possible respect. According to the rules pulse rifles might possibly be a bit better, but the background material makes gauss weapons seem much more powerful - pulse rifles at least leave an identifiable corpse.

I dunno... the superior range of the pulse rifle on an open field counts for a lot. Being able to blow up tanks is great, but situational, since you have to be close enough to the tank to hit it. In urban warfare, where you can easily get around to the backside, the pulse rifle outperforms the flayer against anything but a Land Raider. The flayer punches through armor because of a trick of physics- its raw power, however, ranks behind the pulse rifle. No standard infantry weapon packs the punch of a pulse rifle.

... especially a shuriken catapult. The shuriken catapult is inaccurate and short-ranged because of the lack of rifling or any sort of gyro-stabilizer, like the pulse rifle has.

My ranking is based primarily on performance against infantry- after all, heavy weapons are needed to engage tanks in most situations, and in close-quarters situations, rear armor is easy to damage.

1. Pulse Rifle
2. Splinter Rifle
3. Gauss Flayer
4. Bolter
5. Shuriken catapult
6. Shoota
7. Fleshborer
8. Flashlight

placed the catapult in front of the shoota based solely on how much more useful it is coming out of a transport. The catapult ranks above the bolter when used by mechanized infantry and is last place on an open battlefield. Even a lasgun is better when you can see the enemy outside of firing range.

How long is the range of the pulse rifle? Bolters fire with near laser accuracy well over two klicks. Lemme go dig up the quote for the Iron Warrior snapshot wizard.

And autoguns are useless in W40K. They don't do anything against power armor, hell even against Orks they're useless, it simply takes far to many bullets to get the job done.

Autoguns are the weapon of choice for the last chancers against orks. They not only kill greenskins dead just as fast as flash lights, but can do so while being silenced. A silenced autogun is just as effective, even more so in the right hands. As for power armor though, yea no I would rather try my luck with pretty much anything else than use an autogun against a space marine.

According to most fluff I've read there are two types of bolters, astartes bolters and normal bolters. A normal bolter is powerful enough, but not very reliable and the ammunition costs are nightmarish. An astartes bolter, while still expensive to run, is much more reliable and hits a lot harder, plus has the advantage of custom rounds, which are probably a lot more widespread among marines in fluff than they are in TT. Compare the astartes bolter Deathwatch to the normal bolter in Dark Heresy and you'll see what I mean.

Most of you guys are rating on the individual or tactic level, which is fine, but from a strategic point of view its hard to beat the lasgun.

 EmilCrane wrote:
According to most fluff I've read there are two types of bolters, astartes bolters and normal bolters. A normal bolter is powerful enough, but not very reliable and the ammunition costs are nightmarish. An astartes bolter, while still expensive to run, is much more reliable and hits a lot harder, plus has the advantage of custom rounds, which are probably a lot more widespread among marines in fluff than they are in TT. Compare the astartes bolter Deathwatch to the normal bolter in Dark Heresy and you'll see what I mean.

Most of you guys are rating on the individual or tactic level, which is fine, but from a strategic point of view its hard to beat the lasgun.

The man has a point, can you make a fire? Good then you can recharge your lasgun.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

And autoguns are useless in W40K. They don't do anything against power armor, hell even against Orks they're useless, it simply takes far to many bullets to get the job done.

Autoguns are the weapon of choice for the last chancers against orks. They not only kill greenskins dead just as fast as flash lights, but can do so while being silenced. A silenced autogun is just as effective, even more so in the right hands. As for power armor though, yea no I would rather try my luck with pretty much anything else than use an autogun against a space marine.

To my knowledge, autoguns are minimally effective Orks, who pretty much have ballistic vests for skin. Also, moving to autoguns is actually inferior for fighting orks, as autoguns put you at logistical risk from your ammunition running dry, while lasguns simply need a power source to recharge. Plus they're literally lasers, and about as accurate as you can get, making them a superior weapon to arm all of your troops with. That and they do indeed blow off the limbs of human sized targets, so they're not terribly outgunned by autguns (IIRC, don't they range anywhere from 5.56 to .50?)

 Wyzilla wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

And autoguns are useless in W40K. They don't do anything against power armor, hell even against Orks they're useless, it simply takes far to many bullets to get the job done.

Autoguns are the weapon of choice for the last chancers against orks. They not only kill greenskins dead just as fast as flash lights, but can do so while being silenced. A silenced autogun is just as effective, even more so in the right hands. As for power armor though, yea no I would rather try my luck with pretty much anything else than use an autogun against a space marine.

To my knowledge, autoguns are minimally effective Orks, who pretty much have ballistic vests for skin. Also, moving to autoguns is actually inferior for fighting orks, as autoguns put you at logistical risk from your ammunition running dry, while lasguns simply need a power source to recharge. Plus they're literally lasers, and about as accurate as you can get, making them a superior weapon to arm all of your troops with. That and they do indeed blow off the limbs of human sized targets, so they're not terribly outgunned by autguns (IIRC, don't they range anywhere from 5.56 to .50?)

I don't know, the 3rd ed Guard book made them out to be pretty damn effective against Orks. Of course every novel/codex in the world seems to disagree as to how powerful each weapon is vs different races. From what I read a well placed 7.62 round to the head kills an ork instantly.

1. Gauss Flayer: One of the best weapons out there. It can offer so much flexibility for an infantry small arm.
2. Pule Rifle: Strong, long ranged and accurate. The only thing holding it back are it's users.
3. Lasguns. May not be the strongest or the most penetrating but it can kill most of the things you'll encounter stone dead. You don't need that many clips to feed it, it's piss easy to maintain and spare parts are plentiful.
4. Shuriken Catapault: Pretty good weapon overall. It'll murder whatever you point at it and it can slice through armor a bit better than a bolter.
5. The Boltgun. I rank it lower than the Shurken Catapault since it's a lot more finicky to maintain. Still a solid weapon. Ask for it by name.
6. Fleshborer: It's a gun that shoots killer bugs. What's not to love? It's very reliable, I would assume, but I rank it lower than a Bolter because of it's user. If more elite infantry could use it then I would rank it higher.
7. Shoota: It's strong but these things are loud, inaccurate and unreliable. It does what it does well for a bundle of scrap metal.

Lasguns shoot a laser through a target, make a hole and cauterize it instantly. Autoguns with 7.62 and something like hollow points would blow huge chunks out of an unarmored target like an ork or a loxatl.

Gaunts ghosts used .45 sub machine guns for loxatl killing, who I think are also T4 like an ork.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Just want to mention I agree with Miko on this one. Very good rating system.

Also just to throw in, in a ciaphas cain book involving the Tau some guardsmen killed by Tau pulse weapons had their cause of death written off as a plasma gun of some kind. So at least on unarmored guardsmen a pulse rifle has similar damage characteristics to a plasma rifle.

It is explicity stated that it is, in fact, a plasma rifle. It is a 'cooler' more stable plasma that uses a pseudo railgun technology to accelerate the plasma down the barrel.

Quick note, I don't want to get into a science discussion here, but any laser powerful enough to be used in a military context won't really do the whole "scalpel cutting" kind of role. It will just transfer so much energy to the target in a short pulse that it vaporizes the area of impact and burns quite a large area around it (think if it as a "mini melta").

The specifics aren't important, but basically think a small(ish, relative to a ballistic weapon) impact hole and flash burns surrounding that. you're right on the cauterize part though. Although theoretically if you let someone live a las wound might be more crippling than a ballistic wound because all the flesh is instantly scared over and burns are horrible to heal...but hopefully the target won't live that long.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Lasguns shoot a laser through a target, blow and arm off without too much troubles and are able to be recharged very easily

Fix'd that for you

The problem with ranking the boltgun is wether or not it penetrates the target. If it does then the target is probably dead. Boltguns, while still effective, are designed to kill someone after they penetrate the armour. (Though this could change depending on wether or not you believe that the bolts need to penetrate the armour to explode)

 Daba wrote:
By fluff

1. Shuriken Catapult
Last. Everything else.

Shuriken Catapult actually has a great range, like that of a bolter, fires at over 1000 RPM and each shuriken can penetrate several inches of armour. Not only that, but in the hands of the Eldar it's energy efficient and reliable. Basically, being on the receiving end would be akin to becoming red/green/grey mist.

One slight change, Gauss beats Shurikens

Anyways, as per my own personal ranking (going by fluff not TT).
1. Gauss Flayer
2. Shuriken Catapult and Splinter Rifle (both are relatively equal with their own charms. One is simply devastating whilst the other provides an always reliable chance no matter the foe of wounding)
3. Pulse Rifle
4. Bolter
5. Ork Shoota
6. Lasgun
7. Fleshborer (I only give a mark for Lasguns more simply because the simple reliability of the gun)

 TheCustomLime wrote:
1. Gauss Flayer: One of the best weapons out there. It can offer so much flexibility for an infantry small arm.
2. Pule Rifle: Strong, long ranged and accurate. The only thing holding it back are it's users.

I don't buy the 'flexible' thing. A gauss flayer, a bolter, and a shuriken catapult fare roughly the same against, say, a Carnifex or demon prince. The pulse rifle and the splinter rifle work better. Against many fliers, light vehicles, and rear vehicle armor (AV 10) a gauss flayer, a bolt gun, a shuriken catapult, and a shoota all perform equally well. A pulse rifle is better than any of them, able to penetrate the armor instead of glancing it and able to reach out and touch at a longer range. A pulse rifle works just as well as a gauss flayer against the front of a Rhino (not counting the superior range of the pulse rifle). Is that by the rules instead of fluff? Yes, but for every amazing 40k book written, there's one written by C.S. Goto.

Flexible could either be useful against tanks and mediocre against everything else, or better than average against everything but a tank. Against a monster, a transport, rear armor or line infantry, the pulse rifle is the superior choice.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
1. Gauss Flayer: One of the best weapons out there. It can offer so much flexibility for an infantry small arm.
2. Pule Rifle: Strong, long ranged and accurate. The only thing holding it back are it's users.

I don't buy the 'flexible' thing. A gauss flayer, a bolter, and a shuriken catapult fare roughly the same against, say, a Carnifex or demon prince. The pulse rifle and the splinter rifle work better. Against many fliers, light vehicles, and rear vehicle armor (AV 10) a gauss flayer, a bolt gun, a shuriken catapult, and a shoota all perform equally well. A pulse rifle is better than any of them, able to penetrate the armor instead of glancing it and able to reach out and touch at a longer range. A pulse rifle works just as well as a gauss flayer against the front of a Rhino (not counting the superior range of the pulse rifle). Is that by the rules instead of fluff? Yes, but for every amazing 40k book written, there's one written by C.S. Goto.

Flexible could either be useful against tanks and mediocre against everything else, or better than average against everything but a tank. Against a monster, a transport, rear armor or line infantry, the pulse rifle is the superior choice.

To be fair there is a divide between fluff and tabletop. It really varies for things but I'd argue that the gauss flayer, shuriken, and splinter rifle fluffwise all outstrip other standard arms (sense they are from Necrons and Eldar which are the most technologically advanced races out there). Besides that they all have their advantages and TT tries to make them different. Fluffwise the suriken has better range but tabletop ignores that for whatever reason. Besides that, looking at it from a TT standard, Eldar guns have a higher chance to penetrate armour than Tau, Necrons have a better chance of damaging AV12+ vehicles than any other standard gun, and Tau guns work best against higher toughness units. So what do we learn from this? Only one thing, all of them are better than Bolters

I was under the impression that Boltguns were reliable, though they have a tempermental machine spirit. (In fact, in Dark Heresy they are listed as 'Reliable' weapons, making them less likely to jam.)
On the subject of Astartes, Sororitas, and Guard boltguns: The difference is not in damage output, but venerability and size. A Space Marine Boltgun is much larger, holds generally more ammo, has more complex inner workings, and likely a greater history. A Sororitas boltgun has a somewhat smaller frame, but is otherwise similar. Guard Boltguns, being weilded by mortals without any strength-enhancing genes or armor, are tiny and therefore less reliable or complex, and holding less ammo.

Or so I recall.

Waaaghpower wrote:
I was under the impression that Boltguns were reliable, though they have a tempermental machine spirit. (In fact, in Dark Heresy they are listed as 'Reliable' weapons, making them less likely to jam.)
On the subject of Astartes, Sororitas, and Guard boltguns: The difference is not in damage output, but venerability and size. A Space Marine Boltgun is much larger, holds generally more ammo, has more complex inner workings, and likely a greater history. A Sororitas boltgun has a somewhat smaller frame, but is otherwise similar. Guard Boltguns, being weilded by mortals without any strength-enhancing genes or armor, are tiny and therefore less reliable or complex, and holding less ammo.

Or so I recall.

A bolter fires a .75 caliber round. Anyone who has fired a .50 caliber weapon knows how utterly ridiculous it is that an ordinary person would be able to fire, accurately, a fully-automatic .75 caliber weapon.

Standard humans in 40k are supposed to be standard humans. Standard humans CAN'T use weapons that big. The damage output between a SM bolter and a smaller weapon would HAVE to be different. A 7.62 mm weapon is more likely to kill a person than a 5.56 mm weapon- that's why the US uses it. You can shoot at people trying to aid an injured friend, but no one leaves cover to save the dead.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
I was under the impression that Boltguns were reliable, though they have a tempermental machine spirit. (In fact, in Dark Heresy they are listed as 'Reliable' weapons, making them less likely to jam.)
On the subject of Astartes, Sororitas, and Guard boltguns: The difference is not in damage output, but venerability and size. A Space Marine Boltgun is much larger, holds generally more ammo, has more complex inner workings, and likely a greater history. A Sororitas boltgun has a somewhat smaller frame, but is otherwise similar. Guard Boltguns, being weilded by mortals without any strength-enhancing genes or armor, are tiny and therefore less reliable or complex, and holding less ammo.

Or so I recall.

A bolter fires a .75 caliber round. Anyone who has fired a .50 caliber weapon knows how utterly ridiculous it is that an ordinary person would be able to fire, accurately, a fully-automatic .75 caliber weapon.

Standard humans in 40k are supposed to be standard humans. Standard humans CAN'T use weapons that big. The damage output between a SM bolter and a smaller weapon would HAVE to be different. A 7.62 mm weapon is more likely to kill a person than a 5.56 mm weapon- that's why the US uses it. You can shoot at people trying to aid an injured friend, but no one leaves cover to save the dead.

Not nescessarily.Bolter weapons fire tiny missiles - The initial propulsion wouldn't have to be massive, each bolt propels itself once it leaves the barrel. No giant kick required.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
I was under the impression that Boltguns were reliable, though they have a tempermental machine spirit. (In fact, in Dark Heresy they are listed as 'Reliable' weapons, making them less likely to jam.)
On the subject of Astartes, Sororitas, and Guard boltguns: The difference is not in damage output, but venerability and size. A Space Marine Boltgun is much larger, holds generally more ammo, has more complex inner workings, and likely a greater history. A Sororitas boltgun has a somewhat smaller frame, but is otherwise similar. Guard Boltguns, being weilded by mortals without any strength-enhancing genes or armor, are tiny and therefore less reliable or complex, and holding less ammo.

Or so I recall.

A bolter fires a .75 caliber round. Anyone who has fired a .50 caliber weapon knows how utterly ridiculous it is that an ordinary person would be able to fire, accurately, a fully-automatic .75 caliber weapon.

Standard humans in 40k are supposed to be standard humans. Standard humans CAN'T use weapons that big. The damage output between a SM bolter and a smaller weapon would HAVE to be different. A 7.62 mm weapon is more likely to kill a person than a 5.56 mm weapon- that's why the US uses it. You can shoot at people trying to aid an injured friend, but no one leaves cover to save the dead.

To be fair 40k has never held much grasp on reality. It's a world of sci fantasy where daemons exist along with a rip-off of basically everything mashed together in some unwholesome whole. Look at any war's numbers and often you will notice there is no sense of scale. Notice every time they fight in close combat or ground fighting really means much of anything and one will notice it. Pay attention to where a beginner marine kills a daemon prince basically alone with just a dagger. 40k long threw away realism at the door and requires heavy suspension of disbelief to function

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
1. Gauss Flayer: One of the best weapons out there. It can offer so much flexibility for an infantry small arm.
2. Pule Rifle: Strong, long ranged and accurate. The only thing holding it back are it's users.

I don't buy the 'flexible' thing. A gauss flayer, a bolter, and a shuriken catapult fare roughly the same against, say, a Carnifex or demon prince. The pulse rifle and the splinter rifle work better. Against many fliers, light vehicles, and rear vehicle armor (AV 10) a gauss flayer, a bolt gun, a shuriken catapult, and a shoota all perform equally well. A pulse rifle is better than any of them, able to penetrate the armor instead of glancing it and able to reach out and touch at a longer range. A pulse rifle works just as well as a gauss flayer against the front of a Rhino (not counting the superior range of the pulse rifle). Is that by the rules instead of fluff? Yes, but for every amazing 40k book written, there's one written by C.S. Goto.

Flexible could either be useful against tanks and mediocre against everything else, or better than average against everything but a tank. Against a monster, a transport, rear armor or line infantry, the pulse rifle is the superior choice.

The reason I think the Gauss flayer is more flexible than a Pulse Rifle is that a unit equipped with them can be used as a poor man's AT squad against any vehicle. Pulse Rifles are really only better at one AV type that the flayer. I agree that against higher toughness targets the PR is somewhat better but it's not really all that much. The Pulse Rifle is a close second to be fair to you. If it reloaded quicker, had smaller and/or lighter clips it would be on par with the flayer.


EDIT: AFAIK, Bolters are described as having enough recoil to hurt a non-PA equipped human. Some sources of the SM wankery sort say that marine bolters are strong enough to rip off an unaugmented human's arm off. Pick your favorite interpretation and go with it. I personally see Bolters as having little recoil but being very unwieldy to normal humans.

I read somewhere that the 7,5 caliber of the Boltguns meant 7,5 centimeters, due to in-universe terms and whatnot. This is naturally insane, so I happily took that to heart as I want my 40k nice and crazy. Immersion in a setting where 2,8 m tall supersoldiers run around shooting things with 7,5 cm caliber automatic rocket launchers, where literally billions of soldiers swarm the battlefield, where kilometer-tall battle walkers fight in battles so large so they are not even the focal point... That sounds like a great setting to me, and of the hundreds of different 40k settings depicted in our many and highly contradictory sources, this is the interpretation I choose!

Boy, will I get hate for this.

Yeah, its 0.75 inches, 7,5 cm is the size of a Sherman canon...

I think its past insane at point, you'd have marines with about thirty shots worth of ammunition, or marine that get shot at and lose all their ammunition (or get torn to shred by all the bolts exploding)

Keep your petty logic and reasoning away from 40k.
This is the haven of insanity.
Sherman cannon? Sounds 'bout right.

There's a difference between enjoyable insanity and face-desk-smashing-inducing-insanity

Never underestimate the capabilities of handwavehammer 40K.

Besides, others have said crazier stuff already. Shots as hot as a star? Go ask a scientist what that would do to the continent you stand on, and those on it...

 EmpNortonII wrote:
A bolter fires a .75 caliber round. Anyone who has fired a .50 caliber weapon knows how utterly ridiculous it is that an ordinary person would be able to fire, accurately, a fully-automatic .75 caliber weapon.

Standard humans in 40k are supposed to be standard humans. Standard humans CAN'T use weapons that big. The damage output between a SM bolter and a smaller weapon would HAVE to be different. A 7.62 mm weapon is more likely to kill a person than a 5.56 mm weapon- that's why the US uses it. You can shoot at people trying to aid an injured friend, but no one leaves cover to save the dead.

The width of the bore has little to do with the amount of recoil a gun has. A .50 caliber pistol is quite practical for a moderately strong man to handle, while a .50 caliber rifle is way too powerful to fire without bracing, because they use totally different rounds; one fires a bullet that weights around 20g at a little over 400 m/s, the other fires a bullet that weighs about 45g at more than twice the speed. .50 BMG has about nine times the kinetic energy of .50 AE. A 12g shotgun has a much wider bore than a .50 machine gun (pretty close to .75, actually), but is a practical hand-held weapon because it fires at low velocity.

There are lots of different 7.62 mm rounds, some of them more powerful than 5.56 NATO, some of them less. The US didn't adopt the 5.56mm round because it was likely to wound people; their research showed that the location and number of bullet wounds was more important than the size of hole it made, so they adopted a round which let their soldiers carry a lot of ammunition and fire it both quickly and accurately.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Never underestimate the capabilities of handwavehammer 40K.

Besides, others have said crazier stuff already. Shots as hot as a star? Go ask a scientist what that would do to the continent you stand on, and those on it...

Not that much actually, contrary to popular myth the atmosphere of a planet is harder to set on fire than you might think.

A plasma shot travelling at extreme speed would not do it.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
I was under the impression that Boltguns were reliable, though they have a tempermental machine spirit. (In fact, in Dark Heresy they are listed as 'Reliable' weapons, making them less likely to jam.)
On the subject of Astartes, Sororitas, and Guard boltguns: The difference is not in damage output, but venerability and size. A Space Marine Boltgun is much larger, holds generally more ammo, has more complex inner workings, and likely a greater history. A Sororitas boltgun has a somewhat smaller frame, but is otherwise similar. Guard Boltguns, being weilded by mortals without any strength-enhancing genes or armor, are tiny and therefore less reliable or complex, and holding less ammo.

Or so I recall.

A bolter fires a .75 caliber round. Anyone who has fired a .50 caliber weapon knows how utterly ridiculous it is that an ordinary person would be able to fire, accurately, a fully-automatic .75 caliber weapon.

Standard humans in 40k are supposed to be standard humans. Standard humans CAN'T use weapons that big. The damage output between a SM bolter and a smaller weapon would HAVE to be different. A 7.62 mm weapon is more likely to kill a person than a 5.56 mm weapon- that's why the US uses it. You can shoot at people trying to aid an injured friend, but no one leaves cover to save the dead.

Not nescessarily.Bolter weapons fire tiny missiles - The initial propulsion wouldn't have to be massive, each bolt propels itself once it leaves the barrel. No giant kick required.

Not true. Remember Newton's Third Law, "To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction." Guns recoil... but the reason you don't see much recoil from a rocket is that the force is placed on the gas left behind the rocket- hot, dangerous gas. You don't want to be standing behind a bazooka when it fires. You can get around some of this by propelling the rocket out of the tube with a small gunpowder charge with the rocket then igniting after it has left the barrel to some extent. SMs wouldn't worry about exhaust because they're in power armor... but if it is propelled with a charge, it'll still have massive recoil- to the point of being dangerous.

'As hot as a star' is a pretty vague number anyway. There are plenty of stars with surface temperatures lower than a welding torch.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Never underestimate the capabilities of handwavehammer 40K.

Besides, others have said crazier stuff already. Shots as hot as a star? Go ask a scientist what that would do to the continent you stand on, and those on it...

We have achieved temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun before with no ill effects. I believe size and duration would have more to do with how well you boil a world than just sheer temperature. Remember, that heat has to travel through a lot of cool gas to reach someone a continent over.

If you like that 40k than more power to you. I think those figures are from writers who make up big numbers to sound cool but that is just me.

How would 30 tank shells fit in those mags, though?

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Never underestimate the capabilities of handwavehammer 40K.

Besides, others have said crazier stuff already. Shots as hot as a star? Go ask a scientist what that would do to the continent you stand on, and those on it...

We have achieved temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun before with no ill effects. I believe size and duration would have more to do with how well you boil a world than just sheer temperature. Remember, that heat has to travel through a lot of cool gas to reach someone a continent over.

If you like that 40k than more power to you. I think those figures are from writers who make up big numbers to sound cool but that is just me.

How would 30 tank shells fit in those mags, though?

For example, lighting strikes are hotter than the surface of the sun, but because they last for such a small amount of time, nothing really happens.

I'll own up to starting the whole star discussion here. Sorry. I was making the rather dubious logical connection: "stars are made out of plasma (at least partially), the tau pulse rifle is a plasma weapon, therefore the tau pulse rifle is firing bits of stars at your enemies."

I was mainly doing that in response to the person claiming they weren't as awesome as a bolter.

And I'm not even going to comment on the feasibility of plasma weapons (other than they would not work in space because the plasma would disperse without some kind of electromagnetic conduit between you and the enemy ship). I'm pretty good with kinetic and laser weapons, but applied plasma weaponry is sufficiently advanced right now that I haven't done much research on it.

Just out of curiosity, where would the LRBT Battle Cannon fall? You know, the standard weapon for an Armoured Battle Group?

Overall power: 8
Anti infantry:9
Anti tank:8
Ammo (supply and clip size): 1
Range:10
Customization:1
Total:37

 Happyjew wrote:
Just out of curiosity, where would the LRBT Battle Cannon fall? You know, the standard weapon for an Armoured Battle Group?

As per Imperial Armor its a 120mm smoothbore gun, the same kind of weapon that's mounted on a M1A2 Abrams

The imperials don't have the shell technology that we do though, the best they can do is APCR for the normal battlecannon, or normal Frag-HE, no HEAT or APFSDS that I know of, they make up for it with super special space metal and space HE though.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
Just out of curiosity, where would the LRBT Battle Cannon fall? You know, the standard weapon for an Armoured Battle Group?

As per Imperial Armor its a 120mm smoothbore gun, the same kind of weapon that's mounted on a M1A2 Abrams

The imperials don't have the shell technology that we do though, the best they can do is APCR for the normal battlecannon, or normal Frag-HE, no HEAT or APFSDS that I know of, they make up for it with super special space metal and space HE though.

The Gaunt book with the Chaos Baneblade has a reference to a dpecialist "auger" shell one of the Imoerial Russ commanders has, sufficient to penetrate the superheavy and leave a weak point. Also the Vanquisher has specialist AT shells with no blast potential, similar to a shaped charge or kinetic penetrator shell. They are around, just not that common.

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
Just out of curiosity, where would the LRBT Battle Cannon fall? You know, the standard weapon for an Armoured Battle Group?

As per Imperial Armor its a 120mm smoothbore gun, the same kind of weapon that's mounted on a M1A2 Abrams

The imperials don't have the shell technology that we do though, the best they can do is APCR for the normal battlecannon, or normal Frag-HE, no HEAT or APFSDS that I know of, they make up for it with super special space metal and space HE though.

The model must really have some pretty darn fethed up scale then.

Because I look at my Russ model here, and if I put a Guardsman next to it, it's bloody well bigger than 120 mm. More like 500 mm or something.

Hari, you must have tried putting ten Marines in a Rhino at some point, right? :p

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Hari, you must have tried putting ten Marines in a Rhino at some point, right? :p

The issue with Space Marine transports is my biggest pet peeve in this game. Just make the things bigger already, it makes no sense. Sorry OCD moment.

I agree!

I remember being able to barely squeeze 3 non-upscaled Marines in a Rhino...

Eldar can also take a ranger long rifle as a basic weapon. It's probably better than a catapult overall. Can also take lasblasters but that's nothing to crow about

Kroot rifle is another solid troops choice basic weapon. Probably better than the bolter. But not as good as either the pulse rifle or carbine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the bits of stars comment could apply to any projectile weapon as well. Except catapults, I think the ammo is wraithbone

Shuriken weapons fire metal.

 Flinty wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
Just out of curiosity, where would the LRBT Battle Cannon fall? You know, the standard weapon for an Armoured Battle Group?

As per Imperial Armor its a 120mm smoothbore gun, the same kind of weapon that's mounted on a M1A2 Abrams

The imperials don't have the shell technology that we do though, the best they can do is APCR for the normal battlecannon, or normal Frag-HE, no HEAT or APFSDS that I know of, they make up for it with super special space metal and space HE though.

The Gaunt book with the Chaos Baneblade has a reference to a dpecialist "auger" shell one of the Imoerial Russ commanders has, sufficient to penetrate the superheavy and leave a weak point. Also the Vanquisher has specialist AT shells with no blast potential, similar to a shaped charge or kinetic penetrator shell. They are around, just not that common.

Yeah I know, I was referring to the battlecannon. As of IA:1 V2, the Auger round is a HESH round, its spreads explosive over the target and detonates, I think the vanquisher does have proper modern tank rounds.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Eldar can also take a ranger long rifle as a basic weapon. It's probably better than a catapult overall. Can also take lasblasters but that's nothing to crow about

Kroot rifle is another solid troops choice basic weapon. Probably better than the bolter. But not as good as either the pulse rifle or carbine.

Yeah... given that a kroot rifle can use normal shooting, sniper rounds, and is a decent melee weapon, they might do fairly well in this.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Shuriken weapons fire metal.

In Unremembered Empire, shuriken weapons are noted for firing a plastic/crystal hybrid. A solid block is inserted and shaved off then fired down the barrel at hyper velocities.

They are noted for not being particularly the most accurate weapons (pistols and rifles), but high volume, large ammo capacity weapons.

It would have great penetrative powers (and they do in the book), but poorer stopping power/knock down power. A .45 caliber round has worse penetrative power than a 7.62mm, on average, but better knock down power.

I would also second the kroot rifle, providing you are considering the fact they are provided special rounds produced by the Tau. This round has more knock down power and better armor penetration that the kroot's original rounds.

In Nightbringer, the shots are described as being metal afaik, whereas Dark Eldar rifles fire crystals.

According to C: Eldar, Shuriken weapons utilise a solid core of plasti-crystal material.

Then it was retconn'd. Oh well.

From my understanding both the Eldar and Tau use almost no metal in any of their tech. So this doesn't surprise me.

Well tau do use metal. just not conventional stuff. All their stuff id made from a nano-crystalline alloys (whatever the feth that means). All the eldar's stuff is made from wraithbone though.

Carbon Nano tubes are a nano crystalline substance. If it were mixed with another chemical it would make it an alloy. Metals are not essential to the process.

True, I just kind of assumed it was metal. I'm going to see if the books say anything more. We do know that this stuff is as strong a ceramitite, but lighter.

It's a common misconception Eldar use wraith bone for everything. It's actually a pretty uncommon material for them.

It forms the majority of what they have from what I have read. They also use crystals a lot is seems.

It's much easier to grow crystals in a ship-born (or Craftworld-born) laboratory than it is to assemble minerals into stone and metals.

And wraith bone is "sung" into existence, so there is none of the cost of transport.

Wraithbone is generally only used for Wraith constructs, the 'skeleton' of some vehicles and specialist weapons like Witchblades. Lush use other psychoplastics for most other applications, especially where you don't need psychic conductivity.

It's a psychic-reactive polymer. Does it really matter if we call it wraithbone?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's a psychic-reactive polymer. Does it really matter if we call it wraithbone?

It kind of does because you are talking about different materials. Wraithbone is stronger.

 Daba wrote:
It's a common misconception Eldar use wraith bone for everything. It's actually a pretty uncommon material for them.

Well, the Craftworlds are built from Wraithbone. That alone means it makes up the majority of their materials, does it not?

Are we forgetting the standard weapon of the Grey Knights is a storm bolter not a standard bolter. In my opinion up there with the necrons standard.

It's two bolters strapped together. It's not that good.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It's two bolters strapped together. It's not that good.

I'd take assult 2 over rapid fire at the same range any day.

Yeah, a stormbolter is when you need the destructive output of a bolter in a compact, fully-automatic sub-machinegun form, but don't need the staying-power of an accurate, semi-automatic weapon.

The Stormbolter is an ammo-eater, and empties its drum in a few seconds of sustained fire.

And being more complicated it would jam more.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And being more complicated it would jam more.

You play Space Hulk?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And being more complicated it would jam more.

But the Tau can't unjam their weapons just by singing praise to the Machine Spirit

Unjamming a storm bolter is not a simple matter of singing praise to the machine spirit.

The praise merely soothes the spirit and guides your hands as you clear the jam. AdMech rituals are mnemonic instruction manuals.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Never underestimate the capabilities of handwavehammer 40K.

Besides, others have said crazier stuff already. Shots as hot as a star? Go ask a scientist what that would do to the continent you stand on, and those on it...

We have achieved temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun before with no ill effects. I believe size and duration would have more to do with how well you boil a world than just sheer temperature. Remember, that heat has to travel through a lot of cool gas to reach someone a continent over.

If you like that 40k than more power to you. I think those figures are from writers who make up big numbers to sound cool but that is just me.

How would 30 tank shells fit in those mags, though?

FFG puts plasma as hot as a solar flare, which is in the twenty million degree ballpark, which is the only primary source on the workings of imperial plasma to my knowledge. Then there's the lulzy conclusion that depending on the logic used, Imperial citizens must be kryptonian-level durability or close to it, for not being instantly vaporized by being in close vicinity to the weapon when fired.

Also, Combi Bolter > Storm Bolter.

Whether FFG is canon or not is disputed, but it is the most detailed source we have on the matter, and at least not a game mechanic.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Also, Combi Bolter > Storm Bolter.

Only at half range.

At long range, I'll take 2 shots over a single TL shot.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 Daba wrote:
It's a common misconception Eldar use wraith bone for everything. It's actually a pretty uncommon material for them.

Well, the Craftworlds are built from Wraithbone. That alone means it makes up the majority of their materials, does it not?

Only the skeleton of it, to provide a sturdy structure that doubles as a comms medium. The majority of it would not be made of Wraithbone.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Unjamming a storm bolter is not a simple matter of singing praise to the machine spirit.

The praise merely soothes the spirit and guides your hands as you clear the jam. AdMech rituals are mnemonic instruction manuals.

And considering tau weapons are a bit like las weapons in the fact that they have no actual moving parts, I don;t think pulse weapons can jam, other than the under-slung GL with the carbine.

And that made me think of something. We have to take into consideration that the tau actually have two basic weapon. They both have the same damage, clip, availability, ect. But one has a long range and is otherwise normal for RoF, while the other has a slightly shorter range, but a faster RoF, built in GL, and the option to connect a markerlight. That would definitely increase their customization number.

I'm going to have to think about this now but this is how I'm going to rate the weapons
Damage: 0-10 [0-5 for anti-infantry, 0-5 for anti-vehicle) how much damage they deal]
Range: 0-5 [total range]
Availability: 0-5 [A combination of the cost/ease of production, and availability]
RoF: 0-5 [How fast it fire]
Customization: 0-5 [special ammo, add-ons, ect.]
Ammunition: 0-5 [Clip size, ammunition availability/cost, physical (bad) or energy (good) ammunition, ect.]
Stability: 0-5 [stable or unstable firing, how often it jams, ec.]

You also have to account in who is firing it. A Big Shoota is a much better weapon for an Ork than for a human since the Ork is stronger and better able to handle the recoil etc. The same thing with Marines and bolters, etc.

 Daba wrote:
By fluff

1. Shuriken Catapult
Last. Everything else.

Shuriken Catapult actually has a great range, like that of a bolter, fires at over 1000 RPM and each shuriken can penetrate several inches of armour. Not only that, but in the hands of the Eldar it's energy efficient and reliable. Basically, being on the receiving end would be akin to becoming red/green/grey mist.

I agree

there was some white dwarf fluff long ago about an ogryn coming back from going outside a bunker, the bone 'ead guy trying to explain why his ogryn squad had not come back, to a commissar, while absent mindedly picking piles of shuriken fragments out and dropping them in a tin bucket .. and filling the bucket.. the disbelieving commissar opened the eye slat hatch to look and got liquefied by a point blank harelquin kiss

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
You also have to account in who is firing it. A Big Shoota is a much better weapon for an Ork than for a human since the Ork is stronger and better able to handle the recoil etc. The same thing with Marines and bolters, etc.

I see what your getting at , and I have just assumed that the weapon itself is being shot by the person who wields it, I just don't consider the personas personal accuracy, training, resilience ect.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Unjamming a storm bolter is not a simple matter of singing praise to the machine spirit.

The praise merely soothes the spirit and guides your hands as you clear the jam. AdMech rituals are mnemonic instruction manuals.

And considering tau weapons are a bit like las weapons in the fact that they have no actual moving parts, I don;t think pulse weapons can jam, other than the under-slung GL with the carbine.

And that made me think of something. We have to take into consideration that the tau actually have two basic weapon. They both have the same damage, clip, availabilty, ect. But one has a long range and is otherwise normal for RoF, while the other has a slightly shorter range, but a faster RoF, built in GL, and the option to connect a markerlight. That would definitly increase their customaztion number.

I'm going to have to think about this now but this is how I'm going to rate the weapons
Damage: 0-10 [90-5 for anti-infanrty, 0-5 for anti-vehicle) how much damage they deal]
Range: 0-5 [total range]
Availability: 0-5 [A combination of the cost/ease of production, and availability]
RoF: 0-5 [How fast it fire]
Customization: 0-5 [special ammo, addons, ect.]
Ammunition: 0-5 [Clip size, ammunition availability/cost, phisical (bad) or energy (good) ammuntion, ect.]
Stability: 0-5 [stable or unstable firing, how often it jams, ec.]

With anti-vehicle, remember that a pulse rifle and gauss flayer do the same against AV 11 and the pulse rifle performs better against AV 10... which is the rear armor of most vehicles.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Unjamming a storm bolter is not a simple matter of singing praise to the machine spirit.

The praise merely soothes the spirit and guides your hands as you clear the jam. AdMech rituals are mnemonic instruction manuals.

And considering tau weapons are a bit like las weapons in the fact that they have no actual moving parts, I don;t think pulse weapons can jam, other than the under-slung GL with the carbine.

And that made me think of something. We have to take into consideration that the tau actually have two basic weapon. They both have the same damage, clip, availabilty, ect. But one has a long range and is otherwise normal for RoF, while the other has a slightly shorter range, but a faster RoF, built in GL, and the option to connect a markerlight. That would definitly increase their customaztion number.

I'm going to have to think about this now but this is how I'm going to rate the weapons
Damage: 0-10 [90-5 for anti-infanrty, 0-5 for anti-vehicle) how much damage they deal]
Range: 0-5 [total range]
Availability: 0-5 [A combination of the cost/ease of production, and availability]
RoF: 0-5 [How fast it fire]
Customization: 0-5 [special ammo, addons, ect.]
Ammunition: 0-5 [Clip size, ammunition availability/cost, phisical (bad) or energy (good) ammuntion, ect.]
Stability: 0-5 [stable or unstable firing, how often it jams, ec.]

With anti-vehicle, remember that a pulse rifle and gauss flayer do the same against AV 11 and the pulse rifle performs better against AV 10... which is the rear armor of most vehicles.

This based on the fluff though...

Well that's what I'm basing everything off of.

"The bolter really is 40k in a nutshell...such an absurd, unreliable, and impractical way to kill stuff; but very good at what does."

Not as absurd as you'd think. GW admitted that the original concept came from a Cold War Era project called GyroJet. The US was seriously considering the project because A) Almost no Recoil, B) considerably higher caliber capability, and C) More accurate when firing repeatedly (courtesy of no recoil). The only reason they scraped it was cost of production per firearm (which wasn't HIGH, per say, just more expensive than the M-16) and lack of reliability (expected with a new weapon, think 'Blackpowder' all over again)

Not saying the Bolter is good, I'd say most guns in game have it's number in at least two regards. But I find it fascinating that the Sci-Fi came second in this situation.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
And being more complicated it would jam more.

But the Tau can't unjam their weapons just by singing praise to the Machine Spirit

They don't need to unjam their weapons, most of their weapons don't shoot a bullet or other solid projectile (at least burst cannons, pulse rifles, pulse carbines, fusion blasters, flamers, and ion weapons don't).

I keep seeing statements like "the Bolter is great and reliably punches thru power armor", this is true for a 1k sons marine with an ap3 magic bolter round but the basic one just has str4 ap5. Perfect for killing Orks, cultist and gaunts but against carapace or higher? The only way to really know how powerful any of the weapons, armor or any other tech in the 40k universe is for GW to release a technical manual for Imperial forces followed by one for the xenos. Those books would FLY of the shelves.

 mondo80 wrote:
I keep seeing statements like "the Bolter is great and reliably punches thru power armor", this is true for a 1k sons marine with an ap3 magic bolter round but the basic one just has str4 ap5. Perfect for killing Orks, cultist and gaunts but against carapace or higher? The only way to really know how powerful any of the weapons, armor or any other tech in the 40k universe is for GW to release a technical manual for Imperial forces followed by one for the xenos. Those books would FLY of the shelves.

Except we have numerous sources that point to the bolter being a superb anti armor weapon. Like shredding APC armor.

The Shuriken Catapult is a sidearm, not a standard line infantry weapon.

Guardians fight because the situation is dire, but are not standing troops. They're less regular than conscripts.

CW Eldar don't really have a line infantry weapon. The LasBlaster is probably closer.

 Sasori wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Unjamming a storm bolter is not a simple matter of singing praise to the machine spirit.

The praise merely soothes the spirit and guides your hands as you clear the jam. AdMech rituals are mnemonic instruction manuals.

And considering tau weapons are a bit like las weapons in the fact that they have no actual moving parts, I don;t think pulse weapons can jam, other than the under-slung GL with the carbine.

And that made me think of something. We have to take into consideration that the tau actually have two basic weapon. They both have the same damage, clip, availabilty, ect. But one has a long range and is otherwise normal for RoF, while the other has a slightly shorter range, but a faster RoF, built in GL, and the option to connect a markerlight. That would definitly increase their customaztion number.

I'm going to have to think about this now but this is how I'm going to rate the weapons
Damage: 0-10 [90-5 for anti-infanrty, 0-5 for anti-vehicle) how much damage they deal]
Range: 0-5 [total range]
Availability: 0-5 [A combination of the cost/ease of production, and availability]
RoF: 0-5 [How fast it fire]
Customization: 0-5 [special ammo, addons, ect.]
Ammunition: 0-5 [Clip size, ammunition availability/cost, phisical (bad) or energy (good) ammuntion, ect.]
Stability: 0-5 [stable or unstable firing, how often it jams, ec.]

With anti-vehicle, remember that a pulse rifle and gauss flayer do the same against AV 11 and the pulse rifle performs better against AV 10... which is the rear armor of most vehicles.

This based on the fluff though...

There's not much Tau fluff... though, I remember shooting down a Valkyrie in Fire Warrior with a pulse rifle. How many other basic weapons make such fantastic anti-aircraft weapons?

Bharring wrote:
The Shuriken Catapult is a sidearm, not a standard line infantry weapon.

Guardians fight because the situation is dire, but are not standing troops. They're less regular than conscripts.

CW Eldar don't really have a line infantry weapon. The LasBlaster is probably closer.

No, the Lasblaster is a specialist weapon carried by a specific Aspect Shrine.

The Shuriken Catapult's three variants (Standard, Avenger, and the standard one that is mistakable for a lasgun) is by far their most common infantry weapon. Dire Avengers are the first line of defence of a Craftworld, after all.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Bharring wrote:
The Shuriken Catapult is a sidearm, not a standard line infantry weapon.

Guardians fight because the situation is dire, but are not standing troops. They're less regular than conscripts.

CW Eldar don't really have a line infantry weapon. The LasBlaster is probably closer.

No, the Lasblaster is a specialist weapon carried by a specific Aspect Shrine.

The Shuriken Catapult's three variants (Standard, Avenger, and the standard one that is mistakable for a lasgun) is by far their most common infantry weapon. Dire Avengers are the first line of defence of a Craftworld, after all.

Depends on the Craftworld. Ulthwe, has a standing army of Guardians but very few Aspect Shrines, so for them, the Shuriken Catapult is the standard line infantry weapon.

Mine is based on the fluff.

1. Bolter - Apparently a marine with a bolter can kill whatever the Feth it wants to
2.Gauss Flayer - dont think i need to explain
3. Pulse Rifle - Range? yes please
4. shoota - Bigger baby Bolter
5. shuriken - IT FIRES NINJA DEATH STARS!!
6. Splinter Rifle - oh c'mon (D-) could do better
7. Lasgun - Guard are expendable... so are lasguns
8. Fleshborer - why do you think there are sop many of them?

I disagree with the above. I think the Fleshborer is superior to the Lasgun.

Either the Avenger variant or the LasBlaster.

Outcasts still use LasBlasters. If CWE have line troops, it's the Avenger.

Uthwe is barely holding on, and their vast Guardian forces are a mix of civilian militia, and some who have transitioned to full time militia (Black Guardians).

 MrBlackledge wrote:
Mine is based on the fluff.

1. Bolter - Apparently a marine with a bolter can kill whatever the Feth it wants to
2.Gauss Flayer - dont think i need to explain
3. Pulse Rifle - Range? yes please
4. shoota - Bigger baby Bolter
5. shuriken - IT FIRES NINJA DEATH STARS!!
6. Splinter Rifle - oh c'mon (D-) could do better
7. Lasgun - Guard are expendable... so are lasguns
8. Fleshborer - why do you think there are sop many of them?

I only really disagree with the bolter being being #1 and the shoota being #4
The pulse rifle is repeatedly stated in the fluff for being superior than the bolter, and the gauss flayer is most definetly superior to the pulse rifle (and thus the bollter).

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 MrBlackledge wrote:
Mine is based on the fluff.

1. Bolter - Apparently a marine with a bolter can kill whatever the Feth it wants to
2.Gauss Flayer - dont think i need to explain
3. Pulse Rifle - Range? yes please
4. shoota - Bigger baby Bolter
5. shuriken - IT FIRES NINJA DEATH STARS!!
6. Splinter Rifle - oh c'mon (D-) could do better
7. Lasgun - Guard are expendable... so are lasguns
8. Fleshborer - why do you think there are sop many of them?

I only really disagree with the bolter being being #1 and the shoota being #4
The pulse rifle is repeatedly stated in the fluff for being superior than the bolter, and the gauss flayer is most definetly superior to the pulse rifle (and thus the bollter).

And again, in actual practice this is complete bs, as Space Marines neutralize all of the negatives of pulse rifles, and pulse rifles are pretty much utterly useless against the greater threats the Imperium faces, such as Daemons or Chaos Space Marines. And again, bolters can turn APC's and other light vehicles into swiss cheese. And as a weapon system, where you might have to grab a bigger weapon like a tau railgun when Nids show up, astartes simply can lock and load hellfire rounds or vengeance rounds which significantly boosts the effectiveness of the gun. We aren't talking about normal humans using bolters, it's the effectiveness of the guns wielded by the main faction that uses them.

 Wyzilla wrote:

“'I'll never forget the noise,' he said. 'It was like a thunderstorm had suddenly sprung into existence, and our first five ranks were completely cut down, dead to a man without even the time to scream. The enemy's bolts tore limbs from bodies or simply burst men apart like wet sacks. I turned to shout something, I forget what exactly, when I felt a searing pain in the back of my head and I fell over the remains of a man who'd had his entire left side blown off. It looked like he'd exploded from the inside out.” / Tales of Heresy, p.353 - The Last Church

“He swung his bolter up. His weapon had a gash in the metal of the foregrip, the legacy of a greenskin’s axe during Ullanor, a cosmetic mark Loken had told the armourers not to finish out. He began to fire, not on burst, but on single shot, feeling the weapon buck and kick against his palms. Bolter rounds were explosive penetrators. The men he hit popped like blisters, or shredded like bursting fruit. Pink mist fumed off every ruptured figure as it fell.” / Horus Rising, p.25 - **

“Barsabbas reacted as he was drilled, pressuring them witha wide spread of automatic fire. The sudden volley of crackling bolt shells cut out in a semicircle. Rounds so heavy that even their passing shockwave haemorrhaged the brains nd organs of any target in a one-metre radius.” / Blood Gorgons, p.245 - **

“Two more interex soldiers came into view, another sagittar and a gleve. Loken, still running, shot them both before they could react. The force of his bolts, both torso-shots, threw the soldiers back against the wall, where they slithered to the ground. Abaddon had been wrong. The armour of the interex warriors was masterful, not weak. His rounds hadn’t penetrated the chest plates of either of the men, but the sheer, concussive force of the impacts had taken them out of the fight, probably pulping their innards.” / Horus Rising, p.628 - **

“”Brother Vardus opened fire a second later, raking the rear Testudo with an extended burst of heavy bolter fire. The mass-reactive rounds exploded against the APC’s armoured hide and gouged craters in its solid tyres. Here and there the rounds found a seam in the armour plates and penetrated into the APC, wreaking bloody havoc on the men crammed within. The Testudo lurched to a stop, smoke pouring from the holes punched in its side.”
Pg.165 FA

Get back to me when pulse rifles are nearly as freakishly effective as bolters and dishing out damage.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 MrBlackledge wrote:
Mine is based on the fluff.

1. Bolter - Apparently a marine with a bolter can kill whatever the Feth it wants to
2.Gauss Flayer - dont think i need to explain
3. Pulse Rifle - Range? yes please
4. shoota - Bigger baby Bolter
5. shuriken - IT FIRES NINJA DEATH STARS!!
6. Splinter Rifle - oh c'mon (D-) could do better
7. Lasgun - Guard are expendable... so are lasguns
8. Fleshborer - why do you think there are sop many of them?

I only really disagree with the bolter being being #1 and the shoota being #4
The pulse rifle is repeatedly stated in the fluff for being superior than the bolter, and the gauss flayer is most definetly superior to the pulse rifle (and thus the bollter).

And again, in actual practice this is complete bs, as Space Marines neutralize all of the negatives of pulse rifles, and pulse rifles are pretty much utterly useless against the greater threats the Imperium faces, such as Daemons or Chaos Space Marines. And again, bolters can turn APC's and other light vehicles into swiss cheese. And as a weapon system, where you might have to grab a bigger weapon like a tau railgun when Nids show up, astartes simply can lock and load hellfire rounds or vengeance rounds which significantly boosts the effectiveness of the gun. We aren't talking about normal humans using bolters, it's the effectiveness of the guns wielded by the main faction that uses them.

Let me restate myself. Who is firing it has no affect on the weapon's score. Specialized rounds only have an affect on the customization. It is Only the gun itself we are talking about here.
Try rating them like this

Damage: 0-10 [0-5 for anti-infantry, 0-5 for anti-vehicle) how much damage they deal]
Range: 0-5 [total range]
Availability: 0-5 [A combination of the cost/ease of production, and availability]
RoF: 0-5 [How fast it fire]
Customization: 0-5 [special ammo, add-ons, ect.]
Ammunition: 0-5 [Clip size, ammunition availability/cost, physical (bad) or energy (good) ammunition, ect.]
Stability: 0-5 [stable or unstable firing, how often it jams, ec.]

I don't comprehend how shootas are getting ranked so consistently low.

Shootas have good strength. In game, they're equal to a bolter. And they've got great range for an assault weapon. And they're an assault weapon, so you can still chop after you shoot. But that's not all.

In the hands of an ork shootas have a 100% reliability ranking. Literally every time an ork picks one up and makes dakka noises, it starts spewing hot death. Furthermore, it's the only weapon with INFINITE AMMO. It never needs to be reloaded/recharged/swapped out, and there is a never-ending supply of it, so long as the shooter is able to make dakka noises.

Sure, it can't blow up a land raider, or take down monstrous creatures with ease, so it's not #1 or 2, but come on people, the shoota is way better than people are giving due.

They're inaccurate as hell. That's not just the lack of arms-drill on behalf of the Orks.. the bullets sometimes come out sideways.

And Gauss weapons do have infinite ammunition so long as they can connect to the tomb world.

 Ailaros wrote:
I don't comprehend how shootas are getting ranked so consistently low.

Shootas have good strength. In game, they're equal to a bolter. And they've got great range for an assault weapon. And they're an assault weapon, so you can still chop after you shoot. But that's not all.

In the hands of an ork shootas have a 100% reliability ranking. Literally every time an ork picks one up and makes dakka noises, it starts spewing hot death. Furthermore, it's the only weapon with INFINITE AMMO. It never needs to be reloaded/recharged/swapped out, and there is a never-ending supply of it, so long as the shooter is able to make dakka noises.

Sure, it can't blow up a land raider, or take down monstrous creatures with ease, so it's not #1 or 2, but come on people, the shoota is way better than people are giving due.

I ranked shootas relatively low because they only work reliably for Orks - which gives them great Security, but poor Reliability and Versatility.

I did a complete list. I put both the pulse rifle and pulse carbine because they are both the basic weapon (something tau alone has). I also took out availability beacuse they were either almmost all 1 of it was just an average person or all 5 if it was the group.
Gauss Flayer: 27
Damage: 7
Range: 3
RoF: 4
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 5
Stability: 5

Pulse Rifle: 26
Damage: 8
Range: 5
RoF: 3
Customization: 2
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Pulse Carbine: 26
Damage: 8
Range: 2
RoF: 4
Customization: 4
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Shuriken Catapult: 25
Damage: 7
Range: 3
RoF: 4
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Splinter Rifle: 25
Damage: 7
Range: 3
RoF: 3
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 5

Bolter: 21
Damage: 6
Range: 3
RoF: 2
Customization: 5
Ammunition: 2
Stability: 3

Shoota: 17-19
Damage: 6
Range: 2
RoF: 3
Customization: 2
Ammunition: 3-5
Stability: 2

Lasgun: 18
Damage: 1
Range: 3
RoF: 3
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Fleshborer: 18
Damage: 5
Range: 1
RoF: 3
Customization: 2
Ammunition: 3
Stability: 4

 Ailaros wrote:

In the hands of an ork shootas have a 100% reliability ranking. Literally every time an ork picks one up and makes dakka noises, it starts spewing hot death. Furthermore, it's the only weapon with INFINITE AMMO. It never needs to be reloaded/recharged/swapped out, and there is a never-ending supply of it, so long as the shooter is able to make dakka noises.

I'm not sure if you're joking, but if you're serious then none of that is even slightly true. Nothing in the fluff supports this in any way, other than the fact Ork weapons sometimes work better in the hands of Orks (Obviously weapons designed and built by Orks and for Orks would work better when used by an Ork) and a theory from an imperial scientist called Lucas Anzion, who is not entirely reliable and exaggerates a lot. I have seen no where at all that even suggests they can just make dakka noises and the gun will work. The same thing with infinite ammo, just because it's rarely mentioned they have to reload doesn't mean they have infinite ammo - reloading and running out of ammo is pretty much only used for dramatic effect in novels.

If there is actual proof (other than the theory from Anzion) an exact quote for it would be helpful, but everytime i've asked about it no one has provided one. "Orks believe it so it's true" isn't an actual thing and has become such a common misconception lots of people seem to think it's been confirmed and actually happens.

That Pulse Rifles would somehow be so extremely strong is, from what I have seen, something purely based on game mechanics.

They are repeatedly stated as strong, for sure, but I have never seen it be said to have more firepower than gauss flayers or bolters.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
That Pulse Rifles would somehow be so extremely strong is, from what I have seen, something purely based on game mechanics.

They are repeatedly stated as strong, for sure, but I have never seen it be said to have more firepower than gauss flayers or bolters.

From Deathwatch:

-snip-Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartres boltgun in it's destructive capability.-snip-

And that's from deathwatch, which was specifically designed to be bolterporn. This has been stated multiple times in the fluff.

That is still cherrypicking, mind you.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
That is still cherrypicking, mind you.

Hardly, it's just the first ting I had to hand. Every single time a pulse weapon has been compared to a bolter the pulse weapon is shown to be stronger.

More sources, please.

One that you yourself even denounce is not really ideal.

It's pretty telling if Deathwatch, of all sources, rates the pulserifle higher than a bolter. That game introduced boltguns that could kill tanks more reliably than a lascannon or a missile launcher. There was, in fact, no real reason to take any other kind of weapon. The bolter was just that good.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I did a complete list. I put both the pulse rifle and pulse carbine because they are both the basic weapon (something tau alone has). I also took out availability beacuse they were either almmost all 1 of it was just an average person or all 5 if it was the group.
Gauss Flayer: 27
Damage: 7
Range: 3
RoF: 4
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 5
Stability: 5

Pulse Rifle: 26
Damage: 8
Range: 5
RoF: 3
Customization: 2
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Pulse Carbine: 26
Damage: 8
Range: 2
RoF: 4
Customization: 4
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Shuriken Catapult: 25
Damage: 7
Range: 3
RoF: 4
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Splinter Rifle: 25
Damage: 7
Range: 3
RoF: 3
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 5

Bolter: 21
Damage: 6
Range: 3
RoF: 2
Customization: 5
Ammunition: 2
Stability: 3

Shoota: 17-19
Damage: 6
Range: 2
RoF: 3
Customization: 2
Ammunition: 3-5
Stability: 2

Lasgun: 18
Damage: 1
Range: 3
RoF: 3
Customization: 3
Ammunition: 4
Stability: 4

Fleshborer: 18
Damage: 5
Range: 1
RoF: 3
Customization: 2
Ammunition: 3
Stability: 4

Dude, did you just fething ignore everything I posted? Because there's a lot more quotes on bolters completely surpassing the feats for pulse rifles. There is NOTHING supporting pulse weapons or Eldar shurikens being stronger than Bolters in the damage compartment. A single excerpt from a RPG book doesn't mean anything when we have a fething library of bolter feats that go far beyond the shown abilities of pulse rifles. Which again, bolters can shred tank armor with a spray from the wielder and bolters typically reduce targets to puddles of gibs soaked in liquified flesh. Because I don't remember pulse rifles ever doing more than blowing limbs off.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
More sources, please.

One that you yourself even denounce is not really ideal.

You'll have to wait until I get home.
Until then, go find a source that says the bolt guns are stronger.
I have the codex with me and there is a rather of ambiguous statement that is in it, I'll post it once I find it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Dude, did you just fething ignore everything I posted? Because there's a lot more quotes on bolters completely surpassing the feats for pulse rifles. There is NOTHING supporting pulse weapons or Eldar shurikens being stronger than Bolters in the damage compartment. A single excerpt from a RPG book doesn't mean anything when we have a fething library of bolter feats that go far beyond the shown abilities of pulse rifles. Which again, bolters can shred tank armor with a spray from the wielder and bolters typically reduce targets to puddles of gibs soaked in liquified flesh. Because I don't remember pulse rifles ever doing more than blowing limbs off.

I wasn't aware you posted anything, I'll go look. I put the suriken weapons higher because of it's anti-personel powers (mini-rending).
And could you please tone down the language, try to remember rule #1.

Gaunt got shot point-blank in the heart by a bolt pistol and lived.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
You'll have to wait until I get home.
Until then, go find a source that says the bolt guns are stronger.
I have the codex with me and there is a rather of ambiguous statement that is in it, I'll post it once I find it.

That's one source, and FFG isn't too great on their fluff either, for example completely forgetting about Schrodinger Slaanesh in Tome of Excess. I've got five just posted that say otherwise, and I can bring up more. And more. And more. And more. Bolters have superior feats to pulse weapons, that's all that matters, as that's actual use of them in the field. Also, as I remember, pulse rifles aren't even effective at penetrating power armor reliably.

 Psienesis wrote:
Gaunt got shot point-blank in the heart by a bolt pistol and lived.

What do you expect of lasgun porn?

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
You'll have to wait until I get home.
Until then, go find a source that says the bolt guns are stronger.
I have the codex with me and there is a rather of ambiguous statement that is in it, I'll post it once I find it.

That's one source, and FFG isn't too great on their fluff either, for example completely forgetting about Schrodinger Slaanesh in Tome of Excess. I've got five just posted that say otherwise, and I can bring up more. And more. And more. And more. Bolters have superior feats to pulse weapons, that's all that matters, as that's actual use of them in the field. Also, as I remember, pulse rifles aren't even effective at penetrating power armor reliably.

A few points:
1. Read my whole post, I have other sources, I'm just not at home so I can't post them
2. No direct comparisons of bolters to pulse rifles so it doesn't apply
3. According to GW everything is canon so this is
4. Nothing short of a plasma gun is really effective at penetrating PA outside of the HH books when all bolters are suddenly AP3.

 Psienesis wrote:
Gaunt got shot point-blank in the heart by a bolt pistol and lived.

Isn't Gaunt a freak seven foot tall mutant abhuman from an abnormal world?

No? He's tall and thin, as his name suggests, but not abnormally so. He's listed as slightly over 2 meters tall, which makes him like 6'10".

Sure, that's tall, but well within human standards.

 Psienesis wrote:
No? He's tall and thin, as his name suggests, but not abnormally so. He's listed as slightly over 2 meters tall, which makes him like 6'10".

Sure, that's tall, but well within human standards.

I remember a previous threat putting him at 2.2 meters. That's over seven feet, he's bloody huge for a man, and as a Commissar, probably well built. Plus it's likely the bolt just over-penetrated due to the close range.

Actually, the bolt glanced off a metal flower pinned to his lapel and prematurely detonated outside his body.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Actually, the bolt glanced off a metal flower pinned to his lapel and prematurely detonated outside his body.

Yep.

So much for the armor-penetrating capability of bolter rounds. It hit his fancy medal and exploded.

Still threw fragmentation into his chest, but he survived.

wyzilla wrote:

Dude, did you just fething ignore everything I posted? Because there's a lot more quotes on bolters completely surpassing the feats for pulse rifles. There is NOTHING supporting pulse weapons or Eldar shurikens being stronger than Bolters in the damage compartment. A single excerpt from a RPG book doesn't mean anything when we have a fething library of bolter feats that go far beyond the shown abilities of pulse rifles. Which again, bolters can shred tank armor with a spray from the wielder and bolters typically reduce targets to puddles of gibs soaked in liquified flesh. Because I don't remember pulse rifles ever doing more than blowing limbs off.

There are more quotes about bolters than pulse weapons because there are many more books about marines than there are about Tau and as marines are the golden boys, supposedky able to take on anything, they get. Lot more plot armour and magical penetrating bullets than anyone else. For The Emperor references the results of pulse carbine fire as equivalent to plasma weapons fire with an experienced Commissar worried about insurgents with a healthy stock of plasma pistols. If anyone has Fire Warrior to hand, I'm sure it is filled with every pulse shot explodifying the enemy ranks.

The fluff is malleable, nowhere more so than In the BL novels.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
That Pulse Rifles would somehow be so extremely strong is, from what I have seen, something purely based on game mechanics.

They are repeatedly stated as strong, for sure, but I have never seen it be said to have more firepower than gauss flayers or bolters.

From Deathwatch:

-snip-Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartres boltgun in it's destructive capability.-snip-

And that's from deathwatch, which was specifically designed to be bolterporn. This has been stated multiple times in the fluff.

Which does not give it more power than a gauss flayer. Pulse weapons are not even close to gauss weapons in the fluff. The gauss flayer can destroy even a Land Raider, something in which the pulse rifle is sadly lacking. In the fluff, bolters are also better at penetrating armour, or at least ceramite armour which is (assuming it is based on ceramic, which is likely) supposed to be highly (if not entirely) resistant to plasma-based weapons.
Last but not least, you can't rate a weapon without considering its wielder. Even the weakest weapon becomes incredibly powerful in the hands of a great warrior. A discussion of weapons not taking that into consideration is a discussion without point, especially since we are talking about fictional space magic weapons here.
Also, Deathwatch was not designed to be 'bolterporn'. 'Bolterporn' refers to those silly Black Library novels in which 10 Space Marines conquer an entire world and where there is no depth of plot, just battle.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
That Pulse Rifles would somehow be so extremely strong is, from what I have seen, something purely based on game mechanics.

They are repeatedly stated as strong, for sure, but I have never seen it be said to have more firepower than gauss flayers or bolters.

From Deathwatch:

-snip-Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartres boltgun in it's destructive capability.-snip-

And that's from deathwatch, which was specifically designed to be bolterporn. This has been stated multiple times in the fluff.

Which does not give it more power than a gauss flayer. Pulse weapons are not even close to gauss weapons in the fluff. The gauss flayer can destroy even a Land Raider, something in which the pulse rifle is sadly lacking. In the fluff, bolters are also better at penetrating armour, or at least ceramite armour which is (assuming it is based on ceramic, which is likely) supposed to be highly (if not entirely) resistant to plasma-based weapons.
Last but not least, you can't rate a weapon without considering its wielder. Even the weakest weapon becomes incredibly powerful in the hands of a great warrior. A discussion of weapons not taking that into consideration is a discussion without point, especially since we are talking about fictional space magic weapons here.
Also, Deathwatch was not designed to be 'bolterporn'. 'Bolterporn' refers to those silly Black Library novels in which 10 Space Marines conquer an entire world and where there is no depth of plot, just battle.

That's why the gauss flayer is #1. And this is just about the actual weapon itself, not the wielder. I call it bolterporn because it vastly overstates, while not necessarily marines, but everything they have. Their boltgun does 2d10+5 damage which is stronger than a DH plasma gun.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
That Pulse Rifles would somehow be so extremely strong is, from what I have seen, something purely based on game mechanics.

They are repeatedly stated as strong, for sure, but I have never seen it be said to have more firepower than gauss flayers or bolters.

From Deathwatch:

-snip-Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartres boltgun in it's destructive capability.-snip-

And that's from deathwatch, which was specifically designed to be bolterporn. This has been stated multiple times in the fluff.

Which does not give it more power than a gauss flayer. Pulse weapons are not even close to gauss weapons in the fluff. The gauss flayer can destroy even a Land Raider, something in which the pulse rifle is sadly lacking. In the fluff, bolters are also better at penetrating armour, or at least ceramite armour which is (assuming it is based on ceramic, which is likely) supposed to be highly (if not entirely) resistant to plasma-based weapons.
Last but not least, you can't rate a weapon without considering its wielder. Even the weakest weapon becomes incredibly powerful in the hands of a great warrior. A discussion of weapons not taking that into consideration is a discussion without point, especially since we are talking about fictional space magic weapons here.
Also, Deathwatch was not designed to be 'bolterporn'. 'Bolterporn' refers to those silly Black Library novels in which 10 Space Marines conquer an entire world and where there is no depth of plot, just battle.

That's why the gauss flayer is #1. And this is just about the actual weapon itself, not the wielder. I call it bolterporn because it vastly overstates, while not necessarily marines, but everything they have. Their boltgun does 2d10+5 damage which is stronger than a DH plasma gun.

Than what is use of such discussion? A weapon can't be seperate from its wielder. On its own, weapon has no strenght; it does nothing.
And you still rated the pulse rifle above the gauss flayer in your 'damage' category. That is horribly incorrect. The gauss flayer should score at least a 10 in damage, as it peels every molecule from your body. You can't possibly do more damage than that.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
That Pulse Rifles would somehow be so extremely strong is, from what I have seen, something purely based on game mechanics.

They are repeatedly stated as strong, for sure, but I have never seen it be said to have more firepower than gauss flayers or bolters.

From Deathwatch:

-snip-Even the Fire Caste's standard issue weapon, the pulse rifle, is a marvel of technology, surpassing even the Adeptus Astartres boltgun in it's destructive capability.-snip-

And that's from deathwatch, which was specifically designed to be bolterporn. This has been stated multiple times in the fluff.

Which does not give it more power than a gauss flayer. Pulse weapons are not even close to gauss weapons in the fluff. The gauss flayer can destroy even a Land Raider, something in which the pulse rifle is sadly lacking. In the fluff, bolters are also better at penetrating armour, or at least ceramite armour which is (assuming it is based on ceramic, which is likely) supposed to be highly (if not entirely) resistant to plasma-based weapons.
Last but not least, you can't rate a weapon without considering its wielder. Even the weakest weapon becomes incredibly powerful in the hands of a great warrior. A discussion of weapons not taking that into consideration is a discussion without point, especially since we are talking about fictional space magic weapons here.

Where did you get that ceramite is resistant to plasma weapons? Because that seems off, considering that plasma guns are routinely described as melting straight through power armour and terminator armour.

Also, if we are to consider the person wielding it then shouldn't we also consider the support available to the wielder? For all of a space marines training and genetics, a fire warrior can be more accurate over a longer range thanks to the support of markerlights to aid their targeting and the fact that the Pulse Rifle has a longer range. So really, once you get into the "it depends on the person wielding it" argument you logically have to go on to the "it depends on what army they're in" argument and it all just spirals.

Iron_Captain:
This is about mechanics. You can just imagine that all these weapons are being shot by the same person.
I din't know much about gauss weapons so I just based them off the game, you have to take that assessment with a grain of salt.

A Town Called Malus wrote:Where did you get that ceramite is resistant to plasma weapons? Because that seems off, considering that plasma guns are routinely described as melting straight through power armour and terminator armour.

From real life. Judging from its name, ceramite is based on ceramic. Ceramic is highly resistant to plasma.

A Town Called Malus wrote:Also, if we are to consider the person wielding it then shouldn't we also consider the support available to the wielder? For all of a space marines training and genetics, a fire warrior can be more accurate over a longer range thanks to the support of markerlights to aid their targeting and the fact that the Pulse Rifle has a longer range. So really, once you get into the "it depends on the person wielding it" argument you logically have to go on to the "it depends on what army they're in" argument and it all just spirals.

It wouldn't spiral anymore than this discussion already does
The point I am trying to make is that you can't compare the effectiveness of a weapon without taking into consideration all kinds of factors. The humble lasgun is actually one of the most effective weapons in 40k, and therefore one of the most powerful.

Co'tor Shas wrote:Iron_Captain:
This is about mechanics. You can just imagine that all these weapons are being shot by the same person.
I din't know much about gauss weapons so I just based them off the game, you have to take that assessment with a grain of salt.

Of course we could do that, but what point does it have? That is the question I am asking. Debating fictional weapons is already pretty pointless to begin with (though fun ) but assuming such circumstances is even more pointless, since the strenght and effectiveness of a weapon is determined by much more details than you take into consideration and much more than just the weapon itself. This skews the ratings in favour of certain weapons.
In the end, I think each race uses the weapon it is most effective with. The Orks are be much more effective with shootas than with a pulse rifles, and the IG is more effective with lasguns than with gauss flayers.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Where did you get that ceramite is resistant to plasma weapons? Because that seems off, considering that plasma guns are routinely described as melting straight through power armour and terminator armour.

From real life. Judging from its name, ceramite is based on ceramic. Ceramic is highly resistant to plasma.

Than why are plasma weapons so effective against them?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Where did you get that ceramite is resistant to plasma weapons? Because that seems off, considering that plasma guns are routinely described as melting straight through power armour and terminator armour.

From real life. Judging from its name, ceramite is based on ceramic. Ceramic is highly resistant to plasma.

Right. Only, you're:

A) Applying logic (that new-fangled real life logic too, the ultimate heresy ) to 40K

B) Overlooking the fluff/game mechanics that both specifically state otherwise.

Basically, GW can't science right, never have done. So ceramic resistance to plasma IRL is actually completely moot in 40K.

Although I do agree that the wielder does make a difference - a gauss rifle, according to the 3rd ED Necron codex, is actually physically impossible to fire. As in, it should fuse itself together upon pulling the trigger, according to the Imperium at any rate. This is on the same page that shows a Destroyer blasting through a Land Raider.

Terminator armor is like a foot thick of ceramite, and is popped by plasma cannons on the reg. I don't think ceramite is as plas-resistant as you seem to think it is.

 liquidjoshi wrote:


A) Applying logic (that new-fangled real life logic too, the ultimate heresy ) to 40K

You can't say that the Pulse Rifle would be a strong weapon, then, just because it merely is stated as one.

That would be applying logic!

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Where did you get that ceramite is resistant to plasma weapons? Because that seems off, considering that plasma guns are routinely described as melting straight through power armour and terminator armour.

From real life. Judging from its name, ceramite is based on ceramic. Ceramic is highly resistant to plasma.

Than why are plasma weapons so effective against them?

IOM plasma weapons range around twenty million degrees. I.E., the temperature of the sun- they literally throw stellar matter at their targets. Ceramite however is some of the best heat protection there is, second only to admantanium, which is why lasguns are nigh useless against it and prevent a plasma gun shot that was a clean miss from scorching your face off.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 liquidjoshi wrote:


A) Applying logic (that new-fangled real life logic too, the ultimate heresy ) to 40K

You can't say that the Pulse Rifle would be a strong weapon, then, just because it merely is stated as one.

That would be applying logic!

Full points for effort, gonna have to mark you down on execution though.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Where did you get that ceramite is resistant to plasma weapons? Because that seems off, considering that plasma guns are routinely described as melting straight through power armour and terminator armour.

From real life. Judging from its name, ceramite is based on ceramic. Ceramic is highly resistant to plasma.

Than why are plasma weapons so effective against them?

IOM plasma weapons range around twenty million degrees. I.E., the temperature of the sun- they literally throw stellar matter at their targets. Ceramite however is some of the best heat protection there is, second only to admantanium, which is why lasguns are nigh useless against it and prevent a plasma gun shot that was a clean miss from scorching your face off.

Not quite. Lasguns function with a combination of thermal energy and kinetic energy. It's half heat, half bullet-punchy. Ceramite is really tough, so it basically ignores the bullet-punchy half of the equation, and the thermal half is not enough to make up for it.

Then you have the multi-las and the lascannon, both of which punch through ceramite armor as if it were tissue paper.

The multilaser punches through Ceramite?

I have never seen this be implied.

In comparative stats, the Astartes bolt-gun vs the Tau Pulse-rifle, from Deathwatch, which is the bolter-porniest of FFG's bolter-porn games:

The Tau Pulse Rifle has a 150m range (optimal, max range is 600m), can fire 1, 2 or 4 shots a round (semi-automatic or burst fire), and does 2d10+2 Energy-type damage, with a Penetration value of 4. It has the Gyro-Stabilized special quality, which reduces the penalties for long-range shots. Its weight is not given, though it is noted to carry a magazine of 36 rounds.

The Astartes Godwyn-Pattern Boltgun has a 100m range (optimal, 400m maximum), and can fire 1, 2 or 4 shots per round (semi-automatic and burst-fire capable). It deals 2d10+5 Explosive-type damage (when Critical Wounds are inflicted, Explosive criticals become lethal faster than other damage types). It has a Penetration value of 5, and holds 28 rounds in its magazine. It has the Tearing quality, which means an extra d10 is rolled for damage, and the lowest result discarded. It weighs 18kg.

Astartes Power Armor has 10 Armor Points on the Torso, and 8 on every other location. This means that the Tau Pulse Rifle treats all of the Space Marine's limbs and head at 1/2 its AP (being Pen 4), and reduces the AP of the torso by 4.

The Tau's basic power armor, worn by the Fire Warriors, has 6 AP in all locations (being basically powered carapace), thus providing 1 AP after the armor-penetrating effect of an Astartes bolt-gun is taken into effect.

Given the differences in the weapons, it's kind of a wash to say which is better. While the Astartes bolt-gun is more damaging, the Pulse Rifle has half again its maximum range, and is equipped to maximize accuracy when firing at that range, and almost a third again as much staying power. Both weapons make a mockery of the standard armor of one another, significantly reducing their effectiveness.

The Only War multi-las has an optimal range of 150 meters (600m maximum), fires 5 shots per Round (fully automatic only), and deals 2d10+10 Energy-type damage per hit. It has an armor Penetration rating of 2 and a powerpack of 100 total shots, offering 20 Combat Rounds of sustained fire.

With the average damage roll of this weapon being 23 ((5.5 x2)+10+2), and Space Marine PA offering 10 AP in its strongest point (12 total, once the Black Carapace's armor bonus of 2 is taken into account, which is then effectively ignored because of the Pen 2 of the multi-las), a single shot from a multi-las deals 13 points of damage to the Space Marine. Now, this is where the game mechanics get wonky, because the Space Marine probably ignores 10 or 12 of those points of damage due to his Unnatural Toughness, and so ends up taking only 1 or 3 points of damage per hit.

Now, with the way the game's mechanics work, in all cases here, the Tau or the Space Marine can make a Dodge Test to avoid incoming fire. Assuming all weapons involved here are firing at their maximum rates, on average, the Space Marine will take 1 hit from the Pulse Rifle, or 1 hit from a bolter, or 2 hits from the multi-las. We're also assuming, for illustrative purposes, that no 10s are rolled on any of these damage tests, because those can result in "Righteous Furies" which means that you re-roll the damage test and add it to the original, and keep re-rolling it until you don't roll a 10. Any one of these weapons has the capability for a lucky shot to drop a Space Marine in a single Round of combat.

Wat.

Bolters have a range well over two kilometers, not a hundred meters optimal.

No, they don't. Space Marines are heavy infantry shock troops. Most of their operations are fairly short-range engagements, and the bolter itself is built as a carbine or a sub-machinegun, with no buttstock to speak of and a short, stubby barrel.

I have no idea where this idea that bolters have long range comes from.

THey should have long range. Their weapon type should have long range. But every bolter ever only shoots in standard kalashnikov range.

 Psienesis wrote:
No, they don't. Space Marines are heavy infantry shock troops. Most of their operations are fairly short-range engagements, and the bolter itself is built as a carbine or a sub-machinegun, with no buttstock to speak of and a short, stubby barrel.

Yes they do. We know that bolters can accurately fire well over two kilometers with extreme precision- which makes sense considering the rounds they use. That and with the battlefields of W40K, and the Astartes being shock troopers, them being equipped with incredibly long ranged weapons makes sense, unless you seem to have forgotten what a Hive City is like. They need to be equipped with an incredibly long ranged rifle for the job they fulfill, it's not uncommon for them to fight at extreme range to snipe enemies from a distance, which is a handy way of neutralizing orks or dropping sentries.

But an FFG rulebook makes a poor source of stats, considering much of it also revolves specifically around gameplay. Last thing the GM wants is his Kill Team simply camping at the far edge of the map and popping all the enemies as they're sighted.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
No, they don't. Space Marines are heavy infantry shock troops. Most of their operations are fairly short-range engagements, and the bolter itself is built as a carbine or a sub-machinegun, with no buttstock to speak of and a short, stubby barrel.

Yes they do. We know that bolters can accurately fire well over two kilometers with extreme precision- which makes sense considering the rounds they use. That and with the battlefields of W40K, and the Astartes being shock troopers, them being equipped with incredibly long ranged weapons makes sense, unless you seem to have forgotten what a Hive City is like. They need to be equipped with an incredibly long ranged rifle for the job they fulfill, it's not uncommon for them to fight at extreme range to snipe enemies from a distance, which is a handy way of neutralizing orks or dropping sentries.

But an FFG rulebook makes a poor source of stats, considering much of it also revolves specifically around gameplay. Last thing the GM wants is his Kill Team simply camping at the far edge of the map and popping all the enemies as they're sighted.

Do you have a source for this?

 Sasori wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
No, they don't. Space Marines are heavy infantry shock troops. Most of their operations are fairly short-range engagements, and the bolter itself is built as a carbine or a sub-machinegun, with no buttstock to speak of and a short, stubby barrel.

Yes they do. We know that bolters can accurately fire well over two kilometers with extreme precision- which makes sense considering the rounds they use. That and with the battlefields of W40K, and the Astartes being shock troopers, them being equipped with incredibly long ranged weapons makes sense, unless you seem to have forgotten what a Hive City is like. They need to be equipped with an incredibly long ranged rifle for the job they fulfill, it's not uncommon for them to fight at extreme range to snipe enemies from a distance, which is a handy way of neutralizing orks or dropping sentries.

But an FFG rulebook makes a poor source of stats, considering much of it also revolves specifically around gameplay. Last thing the GM wants is his Kill Team simply camping at the far edge of the map and popping all the enemies as they're sighted.

Do you have a source for this?

Siege of Castellax especially comes to mind, an Iron Warrior explicitly fires off a shot at 2.1+ kilomets (IIRC, 2.5) at an enemy sniper behind cover. He popped the shot off at the proper angle to bounce under the sniper's cover and into her pelvis/torso. From over two kilometers away. As for the nature of hive cities-



It's all about altitude. You'll need a weapon capable of firing at extreme range with incredible accuracy due to the threat of nested enemies either far above you or at a great angle ahead of you. A standard issue weapon to every soldier capable of eradicating such threats themselves would be a needed boon, and bolters fill that job well. Then there's already how bolts themselves have something similar to a computer chip inside of them, which is the only way they could possibly function with the mass reactive and gyrojet second stage feature. It's quite possible it might not even be the bolter itself, but the bolt round actually homing in on the target by precisely firing the gyrojets to stabilize and steer the round.



Plus, bolters already link up directly the asupex of a space marine (and IIRC, sister as well_ wielding the gun, which makes it more likely that they have some sort of digital program increasing accuracy.Be it hardware or software. There's no reason at all why bolters would have such a limited range. Plus we already know they're used as long ranged sniper rifles.

That's intreasting, about the Siege of Castellax.

The question is, though, is this an outlier? While I have not read a lot of bolter porn, a 2 KM distance seems a bit ludicrous and out of place, for even 40k.

It is an outlier, yes.

To be fair, a 2 km+ range is not entirely implausible.

Well, the longest confirmed kill using current weapons is 2,475m (which was 1km beyond the weapons effective firing range). Since most boltguns lack a bipod, effective stock and long barrel, such a shot would be very difficult.

Over that kind of distance the amount of effects you have to take into account make hitting the target with your first shot basically impossible. You have wind (which can vary as the round travels over such a large distance), gravity and the Coriolis effect.

Gyrojets would only be able to correct it so much due to limited fuel reserves. Weapons which have been developed which used rocket propellant to accelerate a round only had a burn time of 0.1 seconds. Also the bolt uses solid fuel which means that once it ignites it keeps burning until it is out of fuel. So you can't turn off or turn down that rocket. It has one setting, go.

And you really have to think just how far 2km really is. That'd 2000m. That range would be rediculus to hit anything at, much less an enemy behind cover. As with most exessive exadurations in the fluff I'm going to politely ignore it.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Well, the longest confirmed kill using current weapons is 2,475m (which was 1km beyond the weapons effective firing range). Since most boltguns lack a bipod, effective stock and long barrel, such a shot would be very difficult.

Over that kind of distance the amount of effects you have to take into account make hitting the target with your first shot basically impossible. You have wind (which can vary as the round travels over such a large distance), gravity and the Coriolis effect.

Gyrojets would only be able to correct it so much due to limited fuel reserves. Weapons which have been developed which used rocket propellant to accelerate a round only had a burn time of 0.1 seconds. Also the bolt uses solid fuel which means that once it ignites it keeps burning until it is out of fuel. So you can't turn off or turn down that rocket. It has one setting, go.

But it is fired by a magical superhuman in a futuristic fantasy setting. I'd say it is perfectly plausible

Because a super human does not make bullets fly further (unless they are being thrown )

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Because a super human does not make bullets fly further (unless they are being thrown )

No, but he can have superhuman super aim which allows him to shoot enemies at 2km without scope, bipod and all that non-superhuman nonsense

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Because a super human does not make bullets fly further (unless they are being thrown )

No, but he can have superhuman super aim which allows him to shoot enemies at 2km without scope, bipod and all that non-superhuman nonsense

Assuming the weapon's maximum range is 2km.

A Space Marine decked out in powered armor would be able to resist recoil and maintain better stability though. That should be similar to a bipod.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Well, the longest confirmed kill using current weapons is 2,475m (which was 1km beyond the weapons effective firing range). Since most boltguns lack a bipod, effective stock and long barrel, such a shot would be very difficult.

Over that kind of distance the amount of effects you have to take into account make hitting the target with your first shot basically impossible. You have wind (which can vary as the round travels over such a large distance), gravity and the Coriolis effect.

Gyrojets would only be able to correct it so much due to limited fuel reserves. Weapons which have been developed which used rocket propellant to accelerate a round only had a burn time of 0.1 seconds. Also the bolt uses solid fuel which means that once it ignites it keeps burning until it is out of fuel. So you can't turn off or turn down that rocket. It has one setting, go.

But it is fired by a magical superhuman in a futuristic fantasy setting. I'd say it is perfectly plausible

Magical superhuman doesn't stop gravity working or the wind blowing or the planet from spinning

No, but the magical superhuman's magical supergun does!

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
No, but the magical superhuman's magical supergun does!

Or targetters and autosenses, as we like to think of them in a very real sense...

As well as the gun itself, which is based on technology we do not fully understand.

Such as due to the materials being used.

There have been quite a few threads recently pointing out that all the component parts of a bolter round exist now. They just haven't been put together because a bolt round is a really inefficient way of doing what it does

Given the relative mechanical simplicity of guns, I think the only thing that isn't well documented for bolters is how they work in space. The rounds themselves have all the oxidiser they need, is more about how they don't warp when subject to sunlight out of atmosphere.

Bolters would probebly be better if there was no gyro-jet and just more explosives. They obbiously have cases so that propelant woulf fire the bolt.

Bullets.. um, it was a little while ago, but someone did the maths and... assuming it doesn't hit anything, a bullet will circumnavigate the earth before it runs out of kinetic energy. Maximum ranges are maximum accurate ranges. Bullets don't just hit a certain distance then drop to the ground.

Yeah, but they are still accelerating twords the earth at aproximetly 9.81 m/s^2.


Also, that 2km should be considered as an extreme outlyer, like Bill Gates in a room full of homeless people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:





Does anybody have the specs on how fast the bolt travels? I could figue out how far it would be able to shoot on earth assuming that the SM is firing straight forward.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Well, the longest confirmed kill using current weapons is 2,475m (which was 1km beyond the weapons effective firing range). Since most boltguns lack a bipod, effective stock and long barrel, such a shot would be very difficult.

Over that kind of distance the amount of effects you have to take into account make hitting the target with your first shot basically impossible. You have wind (which can vary as the round travels over such a large distance), gravity and the Coriolis effect.

Gyrojets would only be able to correct it so much due to limited fuel reserves. Weapons which have been developed which used rocket propellant to accelerate a round only had a burn time of 0.1 seconds. Also the bolt uses solid fuel which means that once it ignites it keeps burning until it is out of fuel. So you can't turn off or turn down that rocket. It has one setting, go.

Astartes wear power armor capable of locking itself, along with built-in targeting computers (the asupex) that links up wirelessly with the Astartes' bolter to feed data to the helm. It's not outlandish at all, just people forgetting that power armor is actually POWER armor and it pretty much makes the wearer a cyborg and lets them interface with their own gear. Although it should also be noted that IIRC, As for the solid fuel, don't they use promethium?

And you can't claim something is an outlier unless you gather and read every W40K book and run a statistical analysis of their contents to find the mean. Anything else is simply a false argument.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Well, the longest confirmed kill using current weapons is 2,475m (which was 1km beyond the weapons effective firing range). Since most boltguns lack a bipod, effective stock and long barrel, such a shot would be very difficult.

Over that kind of distance the amount of effects you have to take into account make hitting the target with your first shot basically impossible. You have wind (which can vary as the round travels over such a large distance), gravity and the Coriolis effect.

Gyrojets would only be able to correct it so much due to limited fuel reserves. Weapons which have been developed which used rocket propellant to accelerate a round only had a burn time of 0.1 seconds. Also the bolt uses solid fuel which means that once it ignites it keeps burning until it is out of fuel. So you can't turn off or turn down that rocket. It has one setting, go.

Astartes wear power armor capable of locking itself, along with built-in targeting computers (the asupex) that links up wirelessly with the Astartes' bolter to feed data to the helm. It's not outlandish at all, just people forgetting that power armor is actually POWER armor and it pretty much makes the wearer a cyborg and lets them interface with their own gear. Although it should also be noted that IIRC, As for the solid fuel, don't they use promethium?

And you can't claim something is an outlier unless you gather and read every W40K book and run a statistical analysis of their contents to find the mean. Anything else is simply a false argument.

It is the outlier from known information. You only need an un-biased random grouping to find outliers.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Well, the longest confirmed kill using current weapons is 2,475m (which was 1km beyond the weapons effective firing range). Since most boltguns lack a bipod, effective stock and long barrel, such a shot would be very difficult.

Over that kind of distance the amount of effects you have to take into account make hitting the target with your first shot basically impossible. You have wind (which can vary as the round travels over such a large distance), gravity and the Coriolis effect.

Gyrojets would only be able to correct it so much due to limited fuel reserves. Weapons which have been developed which used rocket propellant to accelerate a round only had a burn time of 0.1 seconds. Also the bolt uses solid fuel which means that once it ignites it keeps burning until it is out of fuel. So you can't turn off or turn down that rocket. It has one setting, go.

Astartes wear power armor capable of locking itself, along with built-in targeting computers (the asupex) that links up wirelessly with the Astartes' bolter to feed data to the helm. It's not outlandish at all, just people forgetting that power armor is actually POWER armor and it pretty much makes the wearer a cyborg and lets them interface with their own gear. Although it should also be noted that IIRC, As for the solid fuel, don't they use promethium?

And you can't claim something is an outlier unless you gather and read every W40K book and run a statistical analysis of their contents to find the mean. Anything else is simply a false argument.

It is the outlier from known information. You only need an un-biased random grouping to find outliers.

Nope, not with the method of the Black Library which is completely randomized and constantly changing themes and tropes as time goes on- plus polls that fail to test the entire group are always the unreliable ones subject to constant error and manipulation. But you can't claim "it's an outlier!' without actually backing that up.

From my known information it is an outlier. As new information is descovered it might hot be.

Also, whoever had the info about thr 2km, can you quote that for me? It sound interesting.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Bullets.. um, it was a little while ago, but someone did the maths and... assuming it doesn't hit anything, a bullet will circumnavigate the earth before it runs out of kinetic energy. Maximum ranges are maximum accurate ranges. Bullets don't just hit a certain distance then drop to the ground.

Did he factor in wind resistance and gravitational pull? That tends to make the bullet drop off, I believe.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Bullets.. um, it was a little while ago, but someone did the maths and... assuming it doesn't hit anything, a bullet will circumnavigate the earth before it runs out of kinetic energy. Maximum ranges are maximum accurate ranges. Bullets don't just hit a certain distance then drop to the ground.

Did he factor in wind resistance and gravitational pull? That tends to make the bullet drop off, I believe.

Apparently not. Ignoring air resistance, objects accelerate downward at 9.81m/s^2

Interestingly, when the bullet is fast enough to make the ground 'lower' faster than it falls towards the ground (probably need faster than Railgun speed for that though...), it has effectively reached low orbit, at least until it is slowed down by air resistance.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Bullets.. um, it was a little while ago, but someone did the maths and... assuming it doesn't hit anything, a bullet will circumnavigate the earth before it runs out of kinetic energy. Maximum ranges are maximum accurate ranges. Bullets don't just hit a certain distance then drop to the ground.

Did he factor in wind resistance and gravitational pull? That tends to make the bullet drop off, I believe.

Apparently not. Ignoring air resistance, objects accelerate downward at 9.81m/s^2

Yes, I believe the downward acceleration would be the gravitational pull.

It sounds like their maths was flawed...

I don't know much about guns, but wouldn't the energy of the bullet depend on the size and the firing weapon?

 Happyjew wrote:
I don't know much about guns, but wouldn't the energy of the bullet depend on the size and the firing weapon?

It would depend on the weight and the force of the gunpowder's shot, yes.
Size and shape only really matters when determining the effects of wind resistance, iirc.
Weight (or more accurately, mass) is more important.

Eh, its something I saw on a documentary when I was a child, could be wrong for all I know.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Eh, its something I saw on a documentary when I was a child, could be wrong for all I know.

Drop a bullet from the level of the barrel at the same time you fire, and for the most part they will impact the ground (if the fired bullet doesn't hit anything) around the same time. It's why rifles are angled for long range shots, and iron sights have sliders to compensate for the angle for said shots.

And you can't claim something is an outlier unless you gather and read every W40K book and run a statistical analysis of their contents to find the mean. Anything else is simply a false argument.

Basically, every game-system that 40K has that lists ranges for weapons has the bolt-gun sitting somewhere around the range of a standard assault rifle. This is why they don't have 72" range on the tabletop.

While it's conceivable that one could point the weapon skyward at a 45 degree angle and lob a bolt round 2km, assuming being in a standard gravity well with no windage to compensate for, and with an extreme amount of luck, hit a target 2km away... this would be the very definition of an outlier.

That, and you don't need all the information to get an outlier. You need a sample set. That's why studies don't ask every single person on earth.

 Psienesis wrote:
While it's conceivable that one could point the weapon skyward at a 45 degree angle and lob a bolt round 2km, assuming being in a standard gravity well with no windage to compensate for, and with an extreme amount of luck, hit a target 2km away... this would be the very definition of an outlier.

I'm almost certain that this was actually a standard military tactic at some point (I want to say around the time of the Civil War). Since bullets were so heavy and moved so slowly they just angled their weapons at a high elevation and started firing as soon as they saw people. Evidently some tests determined a .45-70 bullet could cause lethal injuries at 3,500 yards.

Just saying, no matter how absurd it might seem, someone has probably done it at some point.

Yes, but how fast does a bolt go? With that you could find out just how far it could go.

I'm not certain that there's a source that provides the velocity of a bolt-round. "Damn fast" is probably the closest we'll get, but I'm willing to entertain sources that have that kind of information.

False Gods has a scene where Loken is musing over whether to take the "standard" bolter rounds, or supersonic rounds, with the argument presented being that the standard rounds would be better for soft targets while the supersonic rounds would be better for armor penetration but would do less damage to internals because the bullet would move through the body too fast for the explosive to detonate in the optimal spot.

So, pretty heavy implication there that standard bolt rounds are sub-sonic.

EDIT- I misremembered most of the scene. There is no mention of one round being "standard", for example. Here's the actual scene:

The thought soured his anticipation of battle as they made their
way to where Aximand and Abaddon checked the arms inventory
of their Stormbird, arguing over which munitions would be
best suited to the mission.
‘I’m telling you, the subsonic shells will be better,’ said Aximand.
‘And what if they have armour like those interex bastards?’
demanded Abaddon.
‘Then we use mass reactive. Tell him, Loken!’
Abaddon turned at Loken and Torgaddon’s approach and
nodded curtly.
‘Aximand’s right,’ Loken said. ‘Supersonic shells will pass
through a man before they have time to flatten and create a killing
exit wound. You might fire three of these through a target
and still not put him down.’
‘Just because the last few fights have been against armoured
warriors, Ezekyle wants them,’ said Aximand, ‘but I keep telling
him that this battle will be fought against men no more armoured
than our own Army soldiers.’

Which is interesting, because bolt rounds don't flatten.

Indeed. I think that's why I remembered the explanation as the charge not detonating in time, rather than the "flattening" thing.

It makes some sense, I suppose, but if hyper-penetration is the problem, the fact that its a .75 cal round should more than make up for it. Putting a three-quarter-inch hole in your chest is going to feth any human up, whether or not the bullet gets a couple inches inside you and explodes or not.

Seems to me like another BL author who has his/her own opinions on how things in the setting work. Which isn't, itself, terrible (Dan Abnett lives by it), but does complicate things when trying to come to a general consensus.

 Psienesis wrote:
It makes some sense, I suppose, but if hyper-penetration is the problem, the fact that its a .75 cal round should more than make up for it. Putting a three-quarter-inch hole in your chest is going to feth any human up, whether or not the bullet gets a couple inches inside you and explodes or not.

Seems to me like another BL author who has his/her own opinions on how things in the setting work. Which isn't, itself, terrible (Dan Abnett lives by it), but does complicate things when trying to come to a general consensus.

Assuming a general consensus is possible in the first place

 Iron_Captain wrote:
general consensus

 Iron_Captain wrote:
possible

I don't know what you guys are on, but I want some.

I also like Miko's list. Unlike Haraldus' mad fanboi issues, Miko actually did a good job of looking at it objectively. Typical Haraldus...

Pew pew, shots fired.

Yes, because everyone who disagrees with you is obviously a fanboy.

Sigh.

Yeah, I'm gonna keep my nose out of this one. *backs out of thread*

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I also like Miko's list. Unlike Haraldus' mad fanboi issues, Miko actually did a good job of looking at it objectively. Typical Haraldus...

Except that the Bolter has feats that outstrip the Pulse Rifle, thus making it better in every area save logistics, although the nature of Astartes chapter neutralizes this downside.

Keep it polite, people, or I'll take your toy away. No production conversation comes out of tossing around labels like "fanboi"; it just jeopardizes your posting privileges.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I also like Miko's list. Unlike Haraldus' mad fanboi issues, Miko actually did a good job of looking at it objectively. Typical Haraldus...

Except that the Bolter has feats that outstrip the Pulse Rifle, thus making it better in every area save logistics, although the nature of Astartes chapter neutralizes this downside.

Pulse weapons also have better ammunition (both more plentiful and a much greater clip size). Pulse rifles have consistently have better range. All pulse weapons all have built in scopes.

Pulse Rifles are also far less prone to jamming.

My appologies. I'll remove fanboi and insert 'person who obviously loves Space Marines so much that they insist that their capabilities are godlike, act like they do in the Space Marine video game (with exclusion to any fluff that states otherwise), and certainly would be better than anything else 'just because' and with no logic behind the arguement'. Is that okay? P.S - Fanboi is not an insult, mods...it is an observation.

I'm a fanboi to Eldar. But I can also think logically when comparing them to others, something others have troubles with due to 'reasons'. Politically correct enough? I don't take a single context of their power and explode it's meaning to the point that I ignore all other fluff. Shuriken Catapults can make it as if Artificer Armor, a relic used by Space Marines...doesn't even exist. But they also bounce off of Tau armor regularly. See? Both sides of a story.

Miko's list takes into account items and actually states how they came to the conclusion with facts stated. Facts that are pretty well known.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
I don't know much about guns, but wouldn't the energy of the bullet depend on the size and the firing weapon?

It would depend on the weight and the force of the gunpowder's shot, yes.
Size and shape only really matters when determining the effects of wind resistance, iirc.
Weight (or more accurately, mass) is more important.

For conventional arms, barrel length is as important (or moreso) than even the weight of the bullet or amount of gunpowder.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
My appologies. I'll remove fanboi and insert 'person who obviously loves Space Marines so much that they insist that their capabilities are godlike, act like they do in the Space Marine video game (with exclusion to any fluff that states otherwise), and certainly would be better than anything else 'just because' and with no logic behind the arguement'. Is that okay?

You and I may have different definitions of 'godlike', but in a setting like 40K, even my actual headcanon (Which I do not actually use as arguments) does not put them at godlike levels of might.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
P.S - Fanboi is not an insult, mods...it is an observation.

I don't see what you are trying to say here. Damage control?

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:

I'm a fanboi to Eldar. But I can also think logically when comparing them to others, something others have troubles with due to 'reasons'. Politically correct enough? I don't take a single context of their power and explode it's meaning to the point that I ignore all other fluff. Shuriken Catapults can make it as if Artificer Armor, a relic used by Space Marines...doesn't even exist. But they also bounce off of Tau armor regularly. See? Both sides of a story.

One should look at all sides of a story, but all sides are equally canon/noncanon. There is nothing 'fanboi' by preferring one side. The idea that there is an 'average' that is to be used as arguments is contrived and commonly just as much a choice of headcanon as what these arguments want to disprove. Trying to belittle the opposition does not help one's arguments.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:

Miko's list takes into account items and actually states how they came to the conclusion with facts stated. Facts that are pretty well known.

And they are facts that are exactly as valid as anything Wyzilla says, no matter how much you might prefer that it would be otherwise.

 Daba wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
I don't know much about guns, but wouldn't the energy of the bullet depend on the size and the firing weapon?

It would depend on the weight and the force of the gunpowder's shot, yes.
Size and shape only really matters when determining the effects of wind resistance, iirc.
Weight (or more accurately, mass) is more important.

For conventional arms, barrel length is as important (or moreso) than even the weight of the bullet or amount of gunpowder.

Ideally you want a round which travels fast but doesn't pass through the target. Kinetic energy is half mass times velocity-squared. So an increase in velocity of the round increases the kinetic energy of the round much more than an increase in the mass of the round itself. So having an efficient, high-energy low-explosive to generate lots of gas to push the bullet out of the barrel is vital.

You then want a way of ensuring that all or most of that kinetic energy is transferred to the target, most commonly by using hollow point rounds which compress upon impacting the target, increasing surface area and therefore increasing their deceleration upon entering the target to prevent the round from exiting.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I also like Miko's list. Unlike Haraldus' mad fanboi issues, Miko actually did a good job of looking at it objectively. Typical Haraldus...

Except that the Bolter has feats that outstrip the Pulse Rifle, thus making it better in every area save logistics, although the nature of Astartes chapter neutralizes this downside.

And if we had more books about pulse rifles, we'd get to see how awesome they really are.

My list was based off their performance in the game as much as their fluff. I know, rules=\fluff, but since the rules are supposed to at least be representative, I choose to use them.

I'm not a Tau fangirl. I'm a Sisters fangirl. If I say I think that pulse rifles are superior weapons to bolters, it's because I genuinely think that, based on the information I have available.

Hellguns are now primary weapons for humanity. They officially deserve a rating in my opinion.

Only for ST's. And isn't it hot-shot lasguns now, which, IIRC, are actually worse (fluffwise)?
I'll think about it's rating though (shorter range, great AP, lower ammunition for hot-shot, same but with more damage and ammunition, but with back pack for hellgun).

Are not the troops of the Tempest Scions Storm Troopers?

Yes, I know. I just look at them like I look at IKs. It is a supplemental codex and nothing more. If I included then I would have to include codex supplements, and then I would have to rate all the crisis weapons too (suits as troops, thus basic).

Well, if we're including the Scion's hot-shots in the list;

Judging off a scale of Poor, Fair, Good and High, in terms of stopping power, range, versatility, ammunition capacity and reliability;

1. Gauss Flayer (Good stopping power, good range, high versatility, infinite ammunition, high reliability)
2. Pulse Rifle (High stopping power, high range, good versatility, fair ammunition, good reliability)
3. Shuriken Catapult (Good stopping power, good versatility, high ammunition, poor range, good reliability)
4. Splinter Rifle (High stopping power, good range, poor versatility, good ammunition, good reliability)
5. Bolter (Good stopping power, good range, fair versatility, poor ammunition, poor reliability)
6. Ork Shoota (Good stopping power, fair range, fair versatility, fair ammunition, poor reliability)
6. Lasgun (Fair stopping power, good range, good versatility, good ammunition, high reliability)
8. Fleshborer (Fair stopping power, poor range, poor versatility, good ammunition, high reliability)

There you go.

Wait did you forget hot-shots ?

I guess I'll do it using your method.
(fair stopping power, short range, high versatility, fair ammunition, high reliability)

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Wait did you forget hot-shots ?

I guess I'll do it using your method.
(fair stopping power, short range, high versatility, fair ammunition, high reliability)

Hotshots are not reliable. They drop from Lasgun reliability to Bolter reliability.

Their ammo is no good either, as they don't get the rechargeable battery any more needing a bigger pack or far fewer shots, and both those make it less versitile. Lasers can be 'big impact' weapons (Lascannons) but it probably needs to be designed from the ground up - the Eldar have variations that are basically melee weapons compared with their normal laser weapons.

Hot shots would be:

Good stopping power, fair range, poor versatility, poor ammunition, poor reliability.

Overall in background, Hot Shots are low tier weapons that are only used for specialist purposes (basically more damage) at expense of all else. Their only saving grace is they're cheaper than a Bolter, which sort of carries the same role but are better in other areas.

No, I didn't forget hotshots.

I upgraded the Lasgun's "versatility" to "good".

See? Hot-shots.

Oh, hot shot packs. I guess that makes sense.

Unlike GW's previous stance, I wholly believe that a hot-shot lasgun is still a lasgun.

I thought there were two different thing, hellguns which are a souped up lasgun that requires a power pack, and lasguns that use hot-shot las packs (having pitiful ammunition).

Depends on who you read.

Average reliability, and they can be charged up like standard lasgun packs.

There's a also this annoying memory of me reading something where it says they have millions of shots thanks to the battery, but I am starting to think its BS, since I can't find it.

Bob, you're probably thinking of the Triplex Pattern Assault Laser, which has a focussing lens rated for a thousand shots before it needs replacing (Kage goes through all 1000 in about ten minutes).

Hellguns are specific weapons - lasers, yes, but fundamentally different in their construction. Hot-shot Lasguns are just regular lasguns with an overcharged power pack.