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Hello, new to 40K, and trying to figure best out how to arm my marines. Is +1 strength (and the lost of the frag missile) worth the 10 points for a lascannon?

2nd question... With a sternguard squad, would it be better to take a ML/lascannon or a couple of shorter range weapons, like a plasma gun / or flamer?

I know the 'best' answer is to take meltas, but I am just starting out and thus am limited to the marines I have, and don't have too much more cash to lay down to buy units right now. So what say you?

sternguard are best stripped down, becuase they are already costly from the get go. i would give a 10man sternguard unit a few combi meltas and call it a day.

as far as tac squads, i think the question of heavy weapons really comes down to if they are going to be transports or not.

In my opinion, Missile Launchers are a far better choice then a Lascannon. It's free and has better utility.

I like lascannons only if I think Russes or Land Raiders (or equivalent AV14 vehicles) might be present in my opponent's list. Otherwise, the ML works fine enough for most situations.

Yea I tend to leave my lascannons in my devie squads and use heavy bolters, multi meltas, or missile launchers in my tacsquads to keep their points down.

as for sterngaurd, if your putting heavy or special weapons in the squad your spending unneeded points. Their special bolter rounds are far better than any special weapon or heavy weapon. if you need a special weapon in the squad pay the 5pts for a combi.

ManwithIronHands wrote:As for sterngaurd, if your putting heavy or special weapons in the squad your spending unneeded points. Their special bolter rounds are far better than any special weapon or heavy weapon. if you need a special weapon in the squad pay the 5pts for a combi.

+ 1

I like to have one lascannon present on the fiield in my dev squad just in case I run into high AV vehicles. But more often than not the krak missle will get the job; plus when you add to that the decreased ML cost, along with the versatility of being able to fire frag missiles at groups of weaker enemies the ML becomes the obvious choice.

O'shovah wrote:

ManwithIronHands wrote:As for sterngaurd, if your putting heavy or special weapons in the squad your spending unneeded points. Their special bolter rounds are far better than any special weapon or heavy weapon. if you need a special weapon in the squad pay the 5pts for a combi.

+ 1

+1

Make sure Sternguard always have access to their special ammo by keeping them with Bolters or Combi-Bolters. They're great they can go from killing Gaunts by ignoring cover saves to wounding Carnifexes on 2+.

I only take an Infantry based Lascannon in a couple situations:

Sicarious is leading my force, and I intend to give one Tactical squad Tank Hunters. Strength 10 Lascannon makes me giggle.

I actually use Devestators; which means 3 ML's and 1 LC. A BS 5 Lascannon benefitting from a Signum also makes me giggle.

In every other situation, the ML is better as far as I can tell.

I do love my Razorbacks, though, and I usually go for the Lascannon/TL-Plasmagun variety. This way, my transports have a darn good chance of destroying the enemy transports from downfield in the early turns. Part of what makes them so effective is that they can move 6" to get a better LOS to the target. Infantry based Lascannons tend to suffer from positional inflexibility.

andruin wrote:Hello, new to 40K, and trying to figure best out how to arm my marines. Is +1 strength (and the lost of the frag missile) worth the 10 points for a lascannon?

2nd question... With a sternguard squad, would it be better to take a ML/lascannon or a couple of shorter range weapons, like a plasma gun / or flamer?

I know the 'best' answer is to take meltas, but I am just starting out and thus am limited to the marines I have, and don't have too much more cash to lay down to buy units right now. So what say you?

I say 1 LC for 2 ML's if you're looking to kit out a Dev squad., and give the 4th guy what you want- i go with a HB. The only thing its going to be troubled by is AV14, which is what melta weapons are for 1 lascannon and 2 krak missles will dish some death to AV less than 13... if you want to make sure give the 4th guy a LC too. If this is plain marines, Free multimelta/Missle launcher is the way to go. Wouldn't even consider spending points on a different heavy weap when i have enough versatility from the 2 choices i have.

Sternguard take nothing but combi weaps, like everyone is saying. One of their special rounds has AP3 last time i checked (dont play marines, but im 90% sure of this), so i would skip combiplas and go with combi- flamer or melta.

If your unsure try a missile launcher. It can use frag missiles to take small groups of enemies and krak missiles for light vehicles

Dude, Leman Russ.

BOOM.

Tacobake wrote:Dude, Leman Russ.

BOOM.

Which weapon is that a vote for?

Well, missile launchers are more versatile.
They are anti-light tank and anti-light infantry.
In the recent RTT, I lascannons for my two Tactical squads and they killed two Broadsides, one Hammerhead, and one Obilterator.
Not too bad if you ask me.

I like MLs for the flexibility. En masse for Devastators? Awesome.

The difference between a 8 STR and 9 STR is just 1 point.
One point is not as small as it appears at first glance, as the chart below illustrates.

Note that as the vehicle armor increases, the chances of penetrating increase considerably with STR9. On AV 13, the STR 9 has double the chance of penetrating vs. STR 8. As the vehicle armor weakens, this margin of effectiveness is less noticeable.
The takeaway here is this : You will need some high hitting weapons (melta, high str) to penetrate the heavy armor, but for dealing with moderate to low armor ML's work well.

MLs are anti-infantry weapons that are optimized against MEQ and GEQs, with a secondary role against light Transports.

Lascannons are slight overkill for anti-MEQ / anti-Transport, but have a primary role against MCs.

MLs aren't anti-tank any more than Lascannons are. Neither the ML nor the Lascannon are even slightly useful against heavy armor (AV13+) from any practical sense of having to hit, then penetrate, then get a good result.

Lascannons are better than Missile Launchers against AV14, which is kind of like saying Aspirin is better than Tylenol against a Migraine. neither are the correct tool for the job.

If you're running razorbacks, the Lascannon will be spending time in a static combat squad, and so it's extra strength and AP make it quite good against a broad range of targets, and as I find the versitility of the ML overhyped, I think if you're planning on going static shooty, go big or go home.

That said, it's not the best use for marines (although, what is?), and if moving your combat squads, or not dividing at all, is a big part of your plan, than go cheap.

My local meta has tons of 2+ save MCs roaming around, so I don't use MLs much anymore. I'd rather have the Lascannon for long range sniping of transports/MCs, but most of the time I just use a MM instead. It lacks range, but I use my Rhino Tactical squads as midfield bunkers so that's not an issue most of the time. It is cheap like a ML, can ignore armor like a Lascannon, and can really make tanks want to stay out of it's 12" range. You give tank hunter to a Tac squad with a MM and your opponent will steer clear... S9 AP1 with possible 2D6 penetration FTW.

I always take lascannons in my tactical squads and 4 missile launchers in my devastator squad. I usually take one tac squad in a drop pod with a MM too for those annoying AV14 vehicles.

FoxPhoenix135 wrote:I like lascannons only if I think Russes or Land Raiders (or equivalent AV14 vehicles) might be present in my opponent's list. Otherwise, the ML works fine enough for most situations.

Lascannons are still subpar against AV14. You need to score 6 hits to get a single penetrating roll on average, and then you need 3 penetrating hits to kill the tank on average. Even at BS4 that is an average of 27 lascannon shots to kill 1 AV14 vehicle (9 shots to cause 6 hits, 1 in 6 pens, 3 pens needed, thus 27 total shots yield an average of 18 hits for 3 penetrating results).

It can be difficult to do sometimes, but 1/2 range Melta is the best answer to AV14 in the format (with Railguns coming up close second). with this in mind, I'd take the free Multimeltas in my tac squads. Just 3 1/2 range melta shots at BS4 should average a dead tank of any armor value.

I reckon heavy weapons don't belong in a Tact squad, i'd have 1 LC and 3 ML's in my Dev Squad, have just a flamer in your tact squad, tact squads lose a lot of mobility when firing heavy weapons and their a troop choice, which in a marine army you don't have a lot of. you don't actually have to take a HW in a squad of ten, it is better for the purpose of taking objectives, which is 2 thirds of the game (and what tactical squads are designed for in my opinion) to have a different squad with heavy weapons destroy anything heavy before your Tact squad get to the objective and have the Tact squad mop anything else up with either rapid fire lessening the amount of attacks the opponent will probably assault you with on their turn , or flame them and get your assault on first and destroy them in one fell swoop.

Sorry to be rude but your post looks like a pumpkin, there is never a need for all orange posts
Plus a heavy weapon is better for holding objectives

Fair enough, no more pumpkiness for me and heavy weapons are just a big shoot me sign when on objectives, people will want to get you off objectives just for being on it, throw a heavy weapon on it taking down units will just attract more attention . Again it's a case of heavy weapons belong with the devastators, if some thing with an AR starts heading for you on the objective let them take it on, if its infantry thats headed your way rapid fire as many down as you can before they get to you.

Caffran9 wrote:Lascannons are still subpar against AV14 (compared to melta)

Of that there is no doubt, the best solution vs. AV 14 is melta. This leads into a longer discussion...

How many LRs?
Vehicles which are AV14 in the front, but AV12 on the side. Hitting the side armor of a barn, err battlewagon is not that hard. Only 2 vehicle types have AV14 on all sides, the LR, Monolith and Super-Heavy Tanks.
Monoliths ignore the 2d6 from meltas. Adding to this the rarity of necron players, monoliths are not things that you should be preparing to fight regularly.
Super-heavy tanks are should not be factored into this, as you will have special tools to take them out in apoc games.
Remaining item is the LR.

Using AV14 as the rule of thumb to define how good a anti-tank weapon is does not provide a full picture of the scope of use. Using that as determining criteria is like saying "That car gets only 15mpg when driving at 80mph, so its not worth buying"

If your facing LR spam in every game that your playing in, then you might be driving the car at 80mph constantly. You would also be the exception and not the norm.
The question to ask is "How many LRs do I see per game on average?" As I play armies other than marines, I face less than 1 LR a game on average.


Diminishing Returns
It is very important to understand that Warhammer uses diminishing returns. T6 is over 300% harder for a bolter to wounds than T4. (16% vs. 50%) That same scalablity applies to vehicle armor as well.
This gives more value to the other long range anti-armor options.

While melta is king -- noone disputes this -- but how good would chess game be if you played with 16 kings?

Yeah well i fight a 'Lith maybe one third of my games perhaps a bit more as my mate is necron. and even in that situation trying to destroy the monolith as a SM player is pointless. I've seen Fire dragons do it on a regular basis and a dreadnaught assaulting with MM and CC weapon doesn't do to badly either. Phase out is a far easier to opt for and destroying those pesky necron warriors are a much better use of ML's. labmouse42 is right,

labmouse42 wrote:I face less than 1 LR a game on average.

14 14 14 vehicles a rarity and LC can handle anything else, but ML are better Vs. Necrons