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Hmm, this is a tough one. Lets look at the good and the bad.

IoM Good:

Large standing Army

Economy already geared towards war time production

Standardized weapon construction

Society of religious fanatics/fascists that obey the call to war


IoM Bad:

Declining Tech

Natural Soldiers

Lasguns

Reliance upon an unreliable system (Psykers &Warp) to get to the battlefield



GE Good

Mass produced Clone Warriors

Average Ground troop has superior body armour

More powerful infantry weapons

Access to shielding for their ground forces(Increasing tech level)


GE Bad

Smaller Empire

Still has vestiges of a republic which means not everyone will answer call to arms

Storm Troopers are BS 2

Currently dealing with internal strife(The rebellion)


It is close. I know that I left out other factors like GE's Jedi/Sith(Time period) & Killer Droid armies and the IoM's Psykers, but I wanted to focus just on the basic units.

IMO, the GE would own the IoM on a tech level but don't know if the GE has the resources to handle both the rebellion and the Imperium.

I still think the edge would go to the GE because an outside threat would probably unite the GE for the duration of the war.

Why do people keep assuming lasguns are worse than E11s (iirc that's the name of the standard blaster right?) and the other stormtrooper stuff?

CrazyThang wrote:Why do people keep assuming lasguns are worse than E11s (iirc that's the name of the standard blaster right?) and the other stormtrooper stuff?

First, Notice the orkmoticon indicating humor

Second, It is more observation than assumption. The Standard Blaster can damage unshielded light vehicles and can bypass body armor damage reduction. This translates to higher strength and AP.

Third, Notice you didn't comment on my observation that the average guardsman is a better shot than the average clone. Also has a orkmoticon to indicate humor.

focusedfire wrote:

CrazyThang wrote:Why do people keep assuming lasguns are worse than E11s (iirc that's the name of the standard blaster right?) and the other stormtrooper stuff?

First, Notice the orkmoticon indicating humor

Second, It is more observation than assumption. The Standard Blaster cand damage unshielded light vehicles and can bypass body armor damage reduction. This translates to higher strength and AP.

Third, Notice you didn't comment on my observation that the average guardsman is a better shot than the average clone. Also has a orkmoticon to indicate humor.

Orkmoticons are thrown around way too much these days (yep, these days) for me to really infer what they mean. And mine was a valid question not any kind of implied "your wrong". I haven't seen these movies in ages and I have only read like 2 of the books so thank you for answering . This is, of course, assuming you took offense to my statement (which it sounds to me as if you had).

@Crazythang-No offense taken or intended. Your post came across a being a bit annoyed at one of the points I had made so I responded by explaining my points and reminding that I had thrown in humor. The last line in the post was to point out that you seemed to have missed that I had put a cooresponding bit of humor in the other list.

Yak9UT wrote:I think Imperium of man because they have guns that shoot bullets which go faster then lasers.

Besides the Empire was defeated by rebels so they can't be that tough.

Wait lasers use light how can a bullet go faster than light?

Imperium would win by such a large margin,it would be laughable.

Every single member of the imperial guard has more guts and style than any storm/clone troopers. The federation lacks any sort of "religious" worship that throws them into battle without hesitation.

"lol,all we have to do is blast the klankers and let the jedi take care of the rest!lololol"

The clones have it so ****** easy I could laugh. The Guard has to deal with endless swarms of tyranids,eldar,chaos and tau,fighting with more blood,sweat and lasers than imanginable. All for the emprah!

I would wager that a single space marine could easily kill several jedi at long range. Close range is a different matter,as the marines have no knowledge of lightsabers,and therefore have no means to stop them.

1 guardsman = around 2 clones
1 marine = about three jedi or 500 clones

I could imagine a single marine killing hundreds of clones with only his bolter and his bare hands. I can imagine the
a single guardsman killing a couple of clones.

The IG have a much better organizational deployment. The clones have a flashy command that involves jedi and high ranking CLONES (redundancy isn't good in that case) that really isn't effective at all.

The IG have better tanks. A leman russ could take down an AT-AT,easy. Coupla' shots to the legs with a battlecannon would bring it down quite easily.

so we are going into a ground and air war? fine, answer to the thunderbolt fighters Tie D's. and for the ground war advanced tie bombers as it was never said we couldn't bring expanded universe into this just not space battles. also for everyone saying marines win it for the imperium look at the beginning of this thread where it said limited marine involvement and even so phase 3 dark troopers are clearly a match for them at least in a ranged fight

Samus_aran115 wrote:Imperium would win by such a large margin,it would be laughable.

Every single member of the imperial guard has more guts and style than any storm/clone troopers. The federation lacks any sort of "religious" worship that throws them into battle without hesitation.

"lol,all we have to do is blast the klankers and let the jedi take care of the rest!lololol"

The clones have it so ****** easy I could laugh. The Guard has to deal with endless swarms of tyranids,eldar,chaos and tau,fighting with more blood,sweat and lasers than imanginable. All for the emprah!

I would wager that a single space marine could easily kill several jedi at long range. Close range is a different matter,as the marines have no knowledge of lightsabers,and therefore have no means to stop them.

1 guardsman = around 2 clones
1 marine = about three jedi or 500 clones

I could imagine a single marine killing hundreds of clones with only his bolter and his bare hands. I can imagine the
a single guardsman killing a couple of clones.

The IG have a much better organizational deployment. The clones have a flashy command that involves jedi and high ranking CLONES (redundancy isn't good in that case) that really isn't effective at all.

The IG have better tanks. A leman russ could take down an AT-AT,easy. Coupla' shots to the legs with a battlecannon would bring it down quite easily.

LMAO
So much for any kind of objectivity from you. LOL.

Every "point" that was made is so laughable it is not even worth tearing apart.

@ focusedfire: Good we are friends then!

@Havoc: not that I agree, but do please tear them apart with points of your own

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:so we are going into a ground and air war? fine, answer to the thunderbolt fighters Tie D's. and for the ground war advanced tie bombers as it was never said we couldn't bring expanded universe into this just not space battles. also for everyone saying marines win it for the imperium look at the beginning of this thread where it said limited marine involvement and even so phase 3 dark troopers are clearly a match for them at least in a ranged fight

Again, it comes down to numbers. The GE has limited amounts of TIEs it can field in the arena of battle, whereas the Imperium's resources for war are much greater. Secondly, Hydra flak tanks are more than capable of stopping a bombing wave. Also, I'm fairly sure that the GE does not have access to tactically useful numbers of Phase III Dark Troopers, owing to that particular project being prematurely cancelled due to it's destruction by Kyle Katarn.

incarna wrote:I was in the UFP corner in the first thread. I’m going with the Imperium in this one.

If you’re including Titan legions – the Imperium has it by a landslide.

If not, super heavy tanks still make short work of AT-AT’s in my anyway.

The Empire’s strategy for getting troops to the front is just plain stupid. Slow and lumbering AT-AT’s plod into battle under direct fire from the opposition. With the support of space marines, dealing with them would be easy work…

“Sir! We have an AT-AT approaching from the east. What should we do?”
“Ask Captain Generic Space Marine #5 to ram its legs with a Landriader. That should stop it… then, when it crashes to the ground the super human nigh-invulnerable god-warriors can poke flamers in the windows and have a Storm Trooper barbecue.”
“… it can’t be that simple sir. This will be a massacre!”
“I’m thinking about pairing up Chimera with long chains and having them drive all over the battlefield tripping AT ST’s. What do you think?”

you have to remember tho that ATAT's shrugged off heavy blaster shots, like superheavy shots


Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S: what about dark jedi? the emperors hand? covert operations with superhuman abilities and awesomly strong CCW?

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:so we are going into a ground and air war? fine, answer to the thunderbolt fighters Tie D's. and for the ground war advanced tie bombers as it was never said we couldn't bring expanded universe into this just not space battles. also for everyone saying marines win it for the imperium look at the beginning of this thread where it said limited marine involvement and even so phase 3 dark troopers are clearly a match for them at least in a ranged fight

Again, it comes down to numbers. The GE has limited amounts of TIEs it can field in the arena of battle, whereas the Imperium's resources for war are much greater. Secondly, Hydra flak tanks are more than capable of stopping a bombing wave. Also, I'm fairly sure that the GE does not have access to tactically useful numbers of Phase III Dark Troopers, owing to that particular project being prematurely cancelled due to it's destruction by Kyle Katarn.

phase three dark troopers were not canceled, granted one of the main production facilities was destroyed it did not stop their production (yes they were mentioned in one of the books, but i cannot recall it's name at the moment). as for having limited tie fighters, remember the empire control the galaxy their production means are by no means limited. furthermore wither people know it or not the rebellion's X wing is actually an empire aircraft so they could always fall back on those if needed. last but not least the empire has alot of sith, koriban is still their training ground and always will be. oh just so it is known vader a not the emperor's right hand guy, it was really mara jade

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:so we are going into a ground and air war? fine, answer to the thunderbolt fighters Tie D's. and for the ground war advanced tie bombers as it was never said we couldn't bring expanded universe into this just not space battles. also for everyone saying marines win it for the imperium look at the beginning of this thread where it said limited marine involvement and even so phase 3 dark troopers are clearly a match for them at least in a ranged fight

Again, it comes down to numbers. The GE has limited amounts of TIEs it can field in the arena of battle, whereas the Imperium's resources for war are much greater. Secondly, Hydra flak tanks are more than capable of stopping a bombing wave. Also, I'm fairly sure that the GE does not have access to tactically useful numbers of Phase III Dark Troopers, owing to that particular project being prematurely cancelled due to it's destruction by Kyle Katarn.

phase three dark troopers were not canceled, granted one of the main production facilities was destroyed it did not stop their production (yes they were mentioned in one of the books, but i cannot recall it's name at the moment). as for having limited tie fighters, remember the empire control the galaxy their production means are by no means limited. furthermore wither people know it or not the rebellion's X wing is actually an empire aircraft so they could always fall back on those if needed. last but not least the empire has alot of sith, koriban is still their training ground and always will be. oh just so it is known vader a not the emperor's right hand guy, it was really mara jade

Erm...it is a tradition umong the Sith that there will only ever be two, master and padawan.

focusedfire wrote:

CrazyThang wrote:Why do people keep assuming lasguns are worse than E11s (iirc that's the name of the standard blaster right?) and the other stormtrooper stuff?

First, Notice the orkmoticon indicating humor

Second, It is more observation than assumption. The Standard Blaster can damage unshielded light vehicles and can bypass body armor damage reduction. This translates to higher strength and AP.

Third, Notice you didn't comment on my observation that the average guardsman is a better shot than the average clone. Also has a orkmoticon to indicate humor.

Yeh, but a single las round fires with very little recoil, even when utilising rapid fire, a single shot will blow limbs of, create huge holes in chests and blow heads up. And against light armour in large numbers it can punch through the outer skin. And when there's lasguns they always fire in large numbers. Remember in SW when Leia got an E11 round in the shoulder? If it was a las round it probably would have lost an arm.

Klawz wrote:

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:so we are going into a ground and air war? fine, answer to the thunderbolt fighters Tie D's. and for the ground war advanced tie bombers as it was never said we couldn't bring expanded universe into this just not space battles. also for everyone saying marines win it for the imperium look at the beginning of this thread where it said limited marine involvement and even so phase 3 dark troopers are clearly a match for them at least in a ranged fight

Again, it comes down to numbers. The GE has limited amounts of TIEs it can field in the arena of battle, whereas the Imperium's resources for war are much greater. Secondly, Hydra flak tanks are more than capable of stopping a bombing wave. Also, I'm fairly sure that the GE does not have access to tactically useful numbers of Phase III Dark Troopers, owing to that particular project being prematurely cancelled due to it's destruction by Kyle Katarn.

phase three dark troopers were not canceled, granted one of the main production facilities was destroyed it did not stop their production (yes they were mentioned in one of the books, but i cannot recall it's name at the moment). as for having limited tie fighters, remember the empire control the galaxy their production means are by no means limited. furthermore wither people know it or not the rebellion's X wing is actually an empire aircraft so they could always fall back on those if needed. last but not least the empire has alot of sith, koriban is still their training ground and always will be. oh just so it is known vader a not the emperor's right hand guy, it was really mara jade

Erm...it is a tradition umong the Sith that there will only ever be two, master and padawan.

not in expanded universe.... same goes for knights of the old republic. Remember the sith academy on korban? The emperor rebuilt it. and i guess mara jade became his true apprentice, vader was just a figure head

felixthecat345 wrote:Yeh, but a single las round fires with very little recoil, even when utilising rapid fire, a single shot will blow limbs of, create huge holes in chests and blow heads up. And against light armour in large numbers it can punch through the outer skin. And when there's lasguns they always fire in large numbers. Remember in SW when Leia got an E11 round in the shoulder? If it was a las round it probably would have lost an arm.

Unfortunately, That is how Hollywood would show a weapon that has no momentum properties behaving. The reality is that a lasgun would burn a tiny little hole that cauterizes itself for no blood loss. Getting a kill shot with a laser is tougher than with a weapon that does internal kinetic damage to the target. Particle weapons are much more deadly in the respect that they do tremendous amounts of kinetic damage.

I've got an idea CHAOS + C.I.S , battle droids fighting along side chaos space marines and daemons! space marines would just fall to the over whelming firepower , while daemons and chaos marines would massacre clones , stormtroopers etc

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:

Klawz wrote:

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:so we are going into a ground and air war? fine, answer to the thunderbolt fighters Tie D's. and for the ground war advanced tie bombers as it was never said we couldn't bring expanded universe into this just not space battles. also for everyone saying marines win it for the imperium look at the beginning of this thread where it said limited marine involvement and even so phase 3 dark troopers are clearly a match for them at least in a ranged fight

Again, it comes down to numbers. The GE has limited amounts of TIEs it can field in the arena of battle, whereas the Imperium's resources for war are much greater. Secondly, Hydra flak tanks are more than capable of stopping a bombing wave. Also, I'm fairly sure that the GE does not have access to tactically useful numbers of Phase III Dark Troopers, owing to that particular project being prematurely cancelled due to it's destruction by Kyle Katarn.

phase three dark troopers were not canceled, granted one of the main production facilities was destroyed it did not stop their production (yes they were mentioned in one of the books, but i cannot recall it's name at the moment). as for having limited tie fighters, remember the empire control the galaxy their production means are by no means limited. furthermore wither people know it or not the rebellion's X wing is actually an empire aircraft so they could always fall back on those if needed. last but not least the empire has alot of sith, koriban is still their training ground and always will be. oh just so it is known vader a not the emperor's right hand guy, it was really mara jade

Erm...it is a tradition umong the Sith that there will only ever be two, master and padawan.

not in expanded universe.... same goes for knights of the old republic. Remember the sith academy on korban? The emperor rebuilt it. and i guess mara jade became his true apprentice, vader was just a figure head

First off, the sith tradition was founded after the Knight of the Old Repubic. Second off, Sideous was a heretic. I also doubt that any of these Sith were or would be used in major battles.

Hmm,well considering I love the imperium so much more than the Federation, I'd say my opinions can be as biased As I want them too.

And no,a dark trooper would never be able to match a space marine. NEVER. Dark troopers would be obliterated by bolter fire. In fact,everything in the star wars universe would be utterly massacred by bolter fire. The Arc Blasters (or whatever) wouldn't be able to kill a space marine in a reasonable time. Killing some lightly armored rebels is easy,killing a space marine would take dozens of shots,at which point the space marine would have ripped their face off already.

I have just found my old Star Wars RPG rulebook and thought I'd add something about the comparison between lasgun and blaster from a game-term perspective. While this is hard in so different game systems and maybe not 100% relevant for this rather fluffy discussion, I thought the information might be useful.

Lasgun and blaster: A rough game-term-wise comparison


A lasgun is a S3 weapon, while a human is T3. This holds true for Storm- and Clonetroopers as well, I think. With these basics, the chance of a lasgun shot killing, eliminating, disabling a non-armoured human target is exactly 50%.


In the RPG terms of the Star Wars rulebook I have here, it's a little bit more detailed. The basic stuff works as follows: If a shot hits a target, the target rolls as much W6 as it has for its "Strength" value and sums the result up, while the power of the shot is determined by rolling as much W6 as the weapon has listed under "Damage" and summing up the resulting numbers. Then the difference of these numbers is used as the actual damage dealt to the target - the higher the result, the worse the wound.

Normal humans - like guardsmen - have 2W strength, while the standard issue stormtrooper blaster has a damage rating of 5W.
The average roll for strength on a human target is 7, while the average blaster-gun damage roll is 17.5.
The difference of these both is 10.5 and, according to the damage chart, a result of 9 is sufficient to disable the target for 10W6 minutes. The target needs to be healed to be able to fight again.

Unfortunately, the exact possibilty of a blaster shot killing a human is much, MUCH harder to calculate than in the case of 40k rules. However, you can see that the average damage result is barely to quite enough to disable its target. In reality, 50% of results will be below average (and might only lightly wound a guardsman (who would then be screamed at by a commissar until he frakking starts fighting again)) and 50% of results will be above average (and will cripple or kill the guardsman, which removes him from being an actually helpful combatant).

Therefore I'd say that a blaster and a lasgun have quite the same killing capacity, with a light advantage to the blaster maybe (due to the average being 10.5 and not the bare minimum of 9 for disabling a target).

Range-wise, the weapons are probably rather similar. The blaster has a given max. range of 300m, which probably is something around the effective range for a lasgun, too, according to BL novels and stuff like that.

Ammunition-wise:

- A blaster can fire 100 shots from one power pack.
- A lasgun (Dark Heresy/Inquisitor players help me out here) has, at least according to Dan Abnett novels, usually a few shots less in its magazine. Might be something around 30, maybe 100 for special cells and low power settings.
However, the lasgun has the HUGE advantage of having magazines that can be re-loaded by exposing them to sunlight or heat sources if necessary. AFAIK, you can't do that with blaster power packs; they need to be re-charged at special charging stations. This makes IoM infantry much more self-sufficient than GE infantry in my opinion, while still keeping the same range and killing power.

Conclusion:
I think blasters and lasguns should be roughly equivalent in their effectiveness as a basic infantry weapon for this discussion. If details are needed, the blaster might be a little bit more killy, while the lasgun might be a little bit more durable and self-sufficient for prolonged combats.


I hope this is essay was at least interesting for some of you.

Just to clear up a misnomer:

las weapons seem to have some KE, as they cause concussive damage and massive internal shock to unarmoured bodies. Quite a few D Abnett novels mention tyhis.

Agreed on that. This might even have some real-life background; a laser beam hitting a solid surface causes thermic ionisation, which creates laser-produced plasma (LPP). I can't find the source, but it sounds sensible that this concentrated, high-temperature plasma effect will have some violent interaction with its surroundings, kreating something like a KE effect.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Hmm,well considering I love the imperium so much more than the Federation, I'd say my opinions can be as biased As I want them too.

And no,a dark trooper would never be able to match a space marine. NEVER. Dark troopers would be obliterated by bolter fire. In fact,everything in the star wars universe would be utterly massacred by bolter fire. The Arc Blasters (or whatever) wouldn't be able to kill a space marine in a reasonable time. Killing some lightly armored rebels is easy,killing a space marine would take dozens of shots,at which point the space marine would have ripped their face off already.

type 2 have arc blasters. type 3 have missile racks and lasers that are about the same power as a las cannon

type 2 have arc blasters. type 3 have missile racks and lasers that are about the same power as a las cannon

I'd be hesitant to directly compare some kind of laser directly to a Lascannon. Without any kind of source, how can you be sure it's not rather the power of a multilaser, for example?

also a Lasgun power pack has more shots in it then that.

a power pack for a lasgun can fire at least 100 rounds, you get repremanded if you can't, on full-auto. single shot provides more shots.




also Lasguns have a misleading name. they are actually Plasma weaponry. it fires an explosive energy bolt similer to a shell, utilizing the same magnetic envelope theory that Plasma guns utilize. a Lasgun will have more damage output then a Blaster.






there were Sith besides Vader and the Emperor during the time of the empire, they were used as impierial assassins to eliminate rivals to Palpatines power(senators, planatary govornors,....)

Mara Jade is the prime example.

Vaders apprentice is also an example.

Witzkatz wrote:

type 2 have arc blasters. type 3 have missile racks and lasers that are about the same power as a las cannon

I'd be hesitant to directly compare some kind of laser directly to a Lascannon. Without any kind of source, how can you be sure it's not rather the power of a multilaser, for example?

good point, the only thing i can say to back this claim up is that they are more then capable of taking out heavy tanks thus why i compared it to a las cannon

that however leaves the option that the tank in SWs are no better then AV12.

@Grey Templar:

Lexicanum says:

The lasgun uses the same basic technology and operates along the same lines as other las weapons, emitting a beam of focused light. The high amount of energy of the beam causes the immediate surface area of a target to be vaporized in a small explosion.

This is a quote from the 3rd edition BRB, I think. There's nothing about energy bolts being transmitted or magnetic envelope effects. Could you maybe quote your sources for that? I know some novels describe "lasbolts" being shot, but this is probably more something like author's freedom of description, I think.

TyraelVladinhurst wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:Hmm,well considering I love the imperium so much more than the Federation, I'd say my opinions can be as biased As I want them too.

And no,a dark trooper would never be able to match a space marine. NEVER. Dark troopers would be obliterated by bolter fire. In fact,everything in the star wars universe would be utterly massacred by bolter fire. The Arc Blasters (or whatever) wouldn't be able to kill a space marine in a reasonable time. Killing some lightly armored rebels is easy,killing a space marine would take dozens of shots,at which point the space marine would have ripped their face off already.

type 2 have arc blasters. type 3 have missile racks and lasers that are about the same power as a las cannon

.....what? I doubt a dark trooper could carry an arc blaster,missile launcher and a "laser" and use them all efficiently.A missile launcher is slow(if he has to load a missile into it,it'll still be slow regardless), and lasers are "heavy" for a reason.

In 40k, infantry carrying lascannons are incredibly rare (devastators and vehicles only) for a reason. It takes someone of massive strength to even carry a lascannon,let alone fire it. I seriously doubt that you could wield any sort of "lascannon" while jumping around the battlefield with your jump pack trying to fire your other massive weapons.


Not only that, but a lascannon is such a complex,enormous weapon, I don't think you could make it small enough to be fitted onto some piece of crap clone in a plastic suit. Oh wait,black plastic suit. There,that makes them way better.