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I just read, in a now closed thread, that lascannons are useless in 5th edition. As I have not played in 5th edition yet, can you guys let me know if this is true and if so why?

Thanks

Not sure...

Maybe its because melta's are so good now that its a waste of points to get lascannons to tankbust?

I field at least 3-4 in a army, they work extremely well for me .. ignore the non-believers

Yeah, I have a hard time believing that anything with a 48" range with Str 9 and AP2 has become obsolete. Especially if being fired by BS 4

NagothDaCleaver wrote:Yeah, I have a hard time believing that anything with a 48" range with Str 9 and AP2 has become obsolete. Especially if being fired by BS 4

The reason why is that because it costs so much. For my Spess Puppehs, a single Lascannon is 10 times the cost of 2 Meltaguns. So for the cost of but a single Lascannon, I can have 10 Meltaguns Instead.

10 Meltaguns > 1 Lascannon.

And Missile Launchers are much cheaper. Yes they can only glance AV14, but that's what Meltas are for!

They're still quite useful, however their dynamics as to WHAT they're usful for has changed. Light armor or Monstrous Creatures, yep, still good. Heavy armor, not so good.

autocannons are better vs AV 12 and below for the points

there is a ton of cover

lascannons are pretty unreliable against AV 13/14 while meltaguns are very reliable against everything, and ap 1.

moving forward to get objectives is the name of the game, so you're packing melta anyway

I have been playing guard since dinosaurs roamed the earth, and my list bristled with lascannons. Everyone who could take a lascannon had one, and that was always enough anti-tank. I did not have any melta guns in my army. Now that 5th has rolled around lascannons are horrible underperformers. I contribute it to the damage table effectively being at -1 from previous editions it makes vehicles so much more survivable. Playing my old style list, mech armies just cruise up and down my gunline impervious to fire. If you arent using melta weapons (which add 1 to the damage table and thereby return it to how it used to be) you usually just damage the vehicle, so now you need weight of fire to blow off all of the weapons and immobilize it to the point it automatically becomes wrecked. Lascannons at Heavy 1 and the fact they are the most expensive of the heavy weapon choices are not the way to do that

Saying Lascannons are obsolete is just silly. No weapon carried by infantry (or most Rhino variants) can compare to it.

Sure, you can talk about the effectiveness of Meltas on any armor... Shoot them from 48" away and see how well they do.

To use melta weapons, you've got to be relatively close. Generally speaking, the guys weilding heavy weapons don't WANT TO BE that close to the action.


Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:Saying Lascannons are obsolete is just silly. No weapon carried by infantry (or most Rhino variants) can compare to it.

Sure, you can talk about the effectiveness of Meltas on any armor... Shoot them from 48" away and see how well they do.

To use melta weapons, you've got to be relatively close. Generally speaking, the guys weilding heavy weapons don't WANT TO BE that close to the action.


Eric

Except no-one uses MultiMeltas, that would be silly.

People use that lovely Assault 1 Meltagun, which just so happens to have a Melta Range equal to the Assault range of 90% of the units in the game. So you fire, and if it isn't dead, charge it for a slim chance of a glance on the arse of the vehicle.

Gwar! wrote:

NagothDaCleaver wrote:Yeah, I have a hard time believing that anything with a 48" range with Str 9 and AP2 has become obsolete. Especially if being fired by BS 4

The reason why is that because it costs so much. For my Spess Puppehs, a single Lascannon is 10 times the cost of 2 Meltaguns. So for the cost of but a single Lascannon, I can have 10 Meltaguns Instead.

10 Meltaguns > 1 Lascannon.

And Missile Launchers are much cheaper. Yes they can only glance AV14, but that's what Meltas are for!

I agree with the cost ratio for practicallity, but it depends on your army setup. Having those initial range 48" shots coming from a Devo squad, or from a dreadnaught thats slowly advancing, can outweigh the need for up close melta's. Though equally, Marines are a tactical army able to play in various ways, so having a few melta's dotted around will not to you any harm, especially if you lose all the lascannon's anyhow.

My last battle depended on my Lascannon's far too much, so next battle I will be adding a few melta's in my tactical squads

Lascannons are good for killing medium AV vehicles.

the one area in which lascannons > Melta weapons is in an Appoc game and if playing against vehicles that are immune to Melta(stormraven, monoliths)

lascannons can reach out and touch things that a melta weapon has to footslog or deep strike onto.

Lascannons can be shooting things on Turn1. melta is normally a turn 2 (maybe 1 if lucky) thing

IMO the lascannon is not wasted, but now much more limited, stills being as destructive as previous editions, but, the new cover rules of 5th makes them less effective in the way that its fairly harder to hit something....

MATHHAMMER TIME!

As guard I have BS3 so here goes

Lascannon
Chance to kill AV14
Chance to hit 50%
No chance to kill with glancing
Chance to Penetrate 16%
Chance to kill on penetrating hit 33%

So we have a 2.6% chance and if they are obscured it is 1.3%, so that is 38 lascannon shots, or 76 if it is obscured

Melta-gun
Chance to kill AV14
Chance to hit 50%
Chance to glance 13.89%
Chance to kill on glancing 16%
Chance to penetrate 58.3%
Chance to kill on penetrate 50%

So total you have a 16% to kill and 8% if its obscured, so thats 6 melta shots, or 12 if its obscured

The biggest problem IG have with meltas is delivery of the unit close enough to cause damage, and doing it early enough for it to matter. Deep Strike (Stormtroopers) and Reserves (outflanking meltavets in Valk) both have the problem of late arrival. Anything that starts on the table has the problem of living long enough to shoot.
So even tho meltas are indeed better at killing armor up close, it's stopping them at range, before they deliver that load of assault troops or get close enough to use their flamers or whatever, that is the problem. For that, we've got lascannons and Vanquishers. That's why my lascannons are still there. Also cause I pretty much build all-comers lists and the lascannons are very useful against all those Monstrous Creatures I see.

Yea, the abundance of cover is what kills Lascannons for me.

That and meltaguns are assualt, so time to slice them up after trashing their ride.

Gwar! wrote:

MagickalMemories wrote:Saying Lascannons are obsolete is just silly. No weapon carried by infantry (or most Rhino variants) can compare to it.

Sure, you can talk about the effectiveness of Meltas on any armor... Shoot them from 48" away and see how well they do.

To use melta weapons, you've got to be relatively close. Generally speaking, the guys weilding heavy weapons don't WANT TO BE that close to the action.


Eric

Except no-one uses MultiMeltas, that would be silly.

People use that lovely Assault 1 Meltagun, which just so happens to have a Melta Range equal to the Assault range of 90% of the units in the game. So you fire, and if it isn't dead, charge it for a slim chance of a glance on the arse of the vehicle.

Except that (a) I never said anything about a Multi-melta and (b) if you're resorting to your devastators charging a Land Raider, it's already too late.
Also, razorbacks can't charge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Volkov wrote:MATHHAMMER TIME!

As guard I have BS3 so here goes

Lascannon
Chance to kill AV14
Chance to hit 50%
No chance to kill with glancing
Chance to Penetrate 16%
Chance to kill on penetrating hit 33%

So we have a 2.6% chance and if they are obscured it is 1.3%, so that is 38 lascannon shots, or 76 if it is obscured

Melta-gun
Chance to kill AV14
Chance to hit 50%
Chance to glance 13.89%
Chance to kill on glancing 16%
Chance to penetrate 58.3%
Chance to kill on penetrate 50%

So total you have a 16% to kill and 8% if its obscured, so thats 6 melta shots, or 12 if its obscured

Except that mathhammer fails if all factors are not equal.
Redo your math from 48 or 36 inches.


Eric

Razorbacks also don't have melta guns or Firepoints, so I don't know what you're getting at...

Lascannons might not be as good for heavy tanks, but I find that MCs and things like Nobz or AV 10-11 Vehicles vehemently disagree with being shot by them.

Except that mathhammer fails if all factors are not equal.
Redo your math from 48 or 36 inches.

Easy Vendetta scout move 24" move 12" disembark special weapon squad

Lascannons aren't useless, depending, but Meltaguns are simply so much better that it's broken (vehicles in general are broken). So unless you're using them for long range plinking, you might as well use Meltaguns, which have a much easier time popping armor, and are so cheap, you can give them to everyone and be perfectly happy!

The big mistake (as I see it) that fifth made was double up the anti vehicle goodies on melta guns, with both increased penetration and increased damage results. We would have a much more interesting set of choices if melta were AP2 and Lascannons were AP1.

Jack

The big mistake (as I see it) that fifth made was double up the anti vehicle goodies on melta guns, with both increased penetration and increased damage results. We would have a much more interesting set of choices if melta were AP2 and Lascannons were AP1.

Oooh, I like that idea

I don't I'm Tau .

To clarify I don't use railguns I stick with melta.

You mean fusion

Monster Rain wrote:Razorbacks also don't have melta guns or Firepoints, so I don't know what you're getting at...

Lascannons might not be as good for heavy tanks, but I find that MCs and things like Nobz or AV 10-11 Vehicles vehemently disagree with being shot by them.

Razorbacks are to Melta Gun wielding infantry as Melta Guns are to Lascannons.
There is no fair comparison.
It's like trying to compare apples and oranges.

If you're going to compare them, you have to compare them in a scenario that will be equally fair for both of them... and such a scenario doesn't exist.

Eric

I've read that post 4 times, Magickal Memories, and still can't figure out the point of it.

On the other hand, I stand by what I said 100%.

LOL

Redding Fayle.

I wouldnt say they are useless.....but I can say, that I do not fear them what so ever. Now melta guns on the other hand, those things are scary. They turn multi wound models into slag, and they turn vehicles into slag. Its not very fun.
Sure you can do the same with a lascannon, but as mentioned before, its a cost/ratio thing as well as what it does on the damage chart.

How much terrain are you guys playing with? o_O

I've been playing since the Space Pups codex (in 5th - and yeah, I know, I'm relatively new compared to all the vets out there) and I have only very, very rarely seen a vehicle get a cover save that wasn't granted by a one-turn Smoke Launcher.

As for the las vs. melta, I'm still going to go ahead and say that Lascannons are still worth it, even if not quite as much as melta. Melta is fantastic, yes, but it doesn't have a 48" range; against Orks and Dark Eldar, I'd rather have the 48" range gun that hits on 3s and pens on 2s. Granted, I never take Long Fangs with Las (5x ML for me) but a Predator Annihilator can be a great deterrent to enemy armor. In a recent game against GKs, who ran 3 LRs, the Pred managed to kill two using lascannons alone. Even if luck determined most of that, I'd hardly call it useless.

I think that's really the biggest problem with this argument, as MagickalMemories pointed out, is range. Yes, a meltagun has a better chance of penning; yes, a meltagun has a better chance of destroying outright. However, a regular meltagun has a 12" (6" melta) range. Even a Multimelta needs to be within 12" to stand any chance of penetrating Av14. Though its odds are technically worse, a Lascannon can do it from 48".

By no means am I calling a lascannon better than a melta - the points cost tells the tale (5 points - or FREE in a GH squad vs. a 175 point Pred) but I really don't think it's the completely useless weapon that people seem to call it.

The other thing about meltas is that unless you are SM they are usually carried by a fairly squishy infantry who can be screened away from vehicles by your own cheap infantry.

They certainly have a role, but I wouldn't like to completely abandon Lascannons or other long-range AT weapons for them.