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The only benefit I see is being able to assault after shooting but why would my guard want to assault? Will you help me with the ins and outs of this conundrum?

What if you're fighting Orks or other Guard and your Veterans are facing a depleted enemy unit?

I am coming off a 5 years hiatus and have not played guard since their 3rd ed codex was new, so I am still trying to figure what they can and can not do. My old armies were World Eaters and Raven Guard Assault (under 3.5) and just can not imagine guard assaulting anything. Trying to feel out the delicacies of 5ht ed.

In my head assaulting orks is crazy, but I guess if it was depleted and I fired shotguns into them and assaulted it could be a good scenario. I just can not see taking them and hoping for a scenario like this.

The shotguns are basically for a little extra punch before charging. You're going to be up close and personal with Vets, most likely, but if they're out of their transports, they're in a bad way after your turn ends. The shotguns are mostly so they have just a tad more punch if they need to defensively assault something (better to charge than be charged!).

There are situations where charging a unit is to your advantage. If you're running a standard 3 melta vet squad in a chimera that's moving around all game, your lasguns wouldn't benefit from the single shot at 24" and like Fetterkey mentioned, small squads can be tied up or killed.

I recently had a case were my PBS was down to 2 models and I was able to get the charge off on an attack bike with a multimelta. I made some good rolls and was able to tie up that bike. Did I kill it? No, but I kept that MM from killing more tanks for the rest of the game. And that was with a PBS with REALLY bad CC stats.

In the end, it's not a big difference, but it offers another option to your vet squad. If they're going to be mobile anyway, I'd go with shotguns. If you expect them to gunline or sit on objectives, I'd go with lasguns.

Many people like to use Veterans as special weapon squads, often with meltaguns or flamers. These short-ranged weapons will likely expose you to a charge the turn after you fire, so you might as well beat them to the punch.

Well I am playing a 100% theme army and I am not worried about tourney play. I am taking 3 meltas and a demo charge, so is the consensus that I need shotys instead of las?

I would probably take shotguns for that sort of unit, yes. They also have the advantage of being much cooler than lasguns!

My vote is yes to shotguns with that setup.

And much more expensive, Forgeworld Cadian Vet upgrade is now on the buylist; again. It was originally.

I would still like to hear more opinions on this subject!

You can make shotguns from lasguns pretty easily. Or model them as "lascarbines" with shorter barrels and use them as counts as shotguns.

EDIT: Here's a few shots of how I did shotguns. I've also seen some cool conversions using flamer bits and others using grenade launchers. If you do a search in the P&M forum you may be able to find them.




and a poorly cropped close up: