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Am I missing something? Why would you take a plasma gun when you can have a meltagun? Is there a reason plasma is better?

I really don't understand why you would take the risk of Gets hot! ? Plasma is 7/2 while melta is 8/1,and scores 2D6 on vehicles within half range. Why use plasma?

Cause plasma allows you to fire two shots when your in rapid fire range.

Plasma has 24" range. If within 12" it can give you 2 shots where as melta is only 1 shot.

Use Plasma for hitting heavy infantry. Use Meltaguns for vehicles.

The difference between 12" and 24" can be 20% of the game.

Yes^^^

Plasma is awesome for taking down MCs too, more wounds, still no save.

Plasma can Punch Light Armor and Instant kill anthing T3, Ignors FNP.
Plasma Pistols still allow you to assualt and get the 2nd weapon bonus
Plasma Gun give you a shot at 24" and 2 at 12"
Plasma Cannons Shread MEQs

I may be in the Minority with you but I prefer Melta to Plasma myself... then again, that is perhaps because I tend to roll lots of 1's.

The major advantage of Plasma is the rapid fire ability to kill things like Death Co and the like due to FNP. I will say though my IG have more plasma than melta because I can stand to lose a IG model as opposed to losing a 19 point marine model to my own poor rolling.

Plasmaguns can rapid fire and Plasmacannons have a blast template as already mentioned.

While not as strong as Melta, Plasma is able to fire more shots and generally hit more things at once.

Ah,okay. I knew about range,but I had no idea about rapid fire.

Plama Pistols are fine,I understand why people use those.

Okay,I got. I still prefer meltas,but only because I hate taking unnecessary risks (ohnoes!)

Plasma Cannons vs Multi-Metlas the real question?
If you are fighting Light Armored Vehicles or Foot MEQs, PC is the way to go, you can get them at 36".
Vs Armor, you want Multi-Meltas and you have to get with in 24".

With my DIY Marines I use Plasma SPAM, 26-29+ Plasma Weapons.
11 Plasma Cannons
3-6 Plasma Guns
12 Plasma Pistols

With My Space Puppies I have a bunch of Melta Weapons, but mostly rely on Thunder Hammers and Power Fist.

Plasma is actually a very small risk for the potential benefits. Melta is safer, but you only have 1 shot and its best against vehicles.



the chance of a Plasma gun rolling Gets hot is roughly 15-16%

then the chance of failing your armour save is 33%.

33% of 15.5% is 5.2%.

so a marine only has a 5% chance of dieing when he fires a Plasma weapon.


if you are still squeamish about it take a command squad for your plasma(what? a Command Squad are you joking?) command squads are for spamming Special Weapons NOT to be overpriced CC beasts.

4 Plasma guns are relativly cheap and having FNP from the Apothacary drops the chance of death down from 5% to 2.5%. the obligatory Captain can have Termi armour and go with some terminators or something.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
if you are really worried about Gets hot then take a command squad.


Command squads are only worth their pts as Special weapon spammers.

4 plasma guns is relativly cheap and the FNP makes them survivable.



Gets Hot breakdown.

Chance of Gets Hot roll =16%

Chance of failed armour save =33%

33% of 16% is roughly 5%

5% chance of a Marine without FNP to die.

FNP has a 50% chance of saving a marine.

50% of 5% is 2.5%

a Marine with FNP only has a 2.5% of death.

I have two Command Squads with Plasma Guns
One with 4 and the 2nd has 3 Plasma Guns with Power Weapons and a Champion.

Some armies dont have to deal with the Gets Hot rule.

yeah, but can your plasma kill tanks

Sure it can. Hit them in the sides or rear with Plasma, or between 12"-24".

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, but can your plasma kill tanks

Land Raiders: No. That is what Power Fist and Melta Bombs are for.
Most others: Yes. Get me to the side or behiend a IG Tank and its AV of 10 or 13.

But its more fun to hit them in the front

they never see it coming




i once had a T'au player DEMAND to see the SM codex to verify that SM plasma was indeed Str7 when i penetrated his Devilfish from the front.

It is also fun dumping 8 S7 AP-2 Shots in to a Terminator Squad and watch 5 of them vaporize.

Anpu42 wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, but can your plasma kill tanks

Land Raiders: No. That is what Power Fist and Melta Bombs are for.
Most others: Yes. Get me to the side or behiend a IG Tank and its AV of 10 or 13.

That's true. Meltabombs are like what..5 points?I might as well take plasma. They still instakill everything. Against infantry,2 garunteed wounds is better than 1.

Good luck rolling the 6 to hit the Land Raider as it zips towards your lines...

Tau use their Plasma for general rifleman duty/busting enemy light armor (and the Missile Pods). It adds up quickly.

I honestly prefer melta. Safer, tougher, instakills, pens vehicles easier... and the delivery isn't so hard when you have Drop Pods and rhinos to get you into range.

If you were going to "Stand and deliver" as it were, plasma might be better for it's longer range.

Then again, I always advocate for more, cheaper, safer dakka. (That's another thing to bring up against plasma. It's HELLA expensive compared to melta. Well, twice the cost, and 8 more points for Tau. Would you rather have 2 meltas or one plasma gun? )

i would rather have a Plasma gun.


twice as many shots and you will likely shoot it twice if not 3 times as often as your Melta gun.

Only twice as many shots at the range meltaguns hit at. And remember, with more shots equals more chances for the dice gods to show their displeasure (Never again will my sergeants have a plasma pistol...)

Again, my opinion being if you have the delivery to get the melta into range, take the melta. If you don't, the plasma's a better choice as you can shoot it from farther away. Of course, if you move you can still only fire 12".... AND you can't assault after firing it.

I play biker marines... so I take alot of plasma guns over melta guns.

the ability to move 12" and still fire my plasma guns 24" is huge compared to melta guns. Also, the ability to double tap at 12", then charge the enemy, makes taking down even monstrous creatures possible with a bike squad loaded with plasma/multimelta/fist.

meltas still have a place in my army, but for general purpose squads, I find plasma guns to be a better option. Of course, this is only for biker armies, but whatever.

I would much rather face melta than plasma. I'm a nid player so I'm a bit biased. Sending trygons into vets with 3 meltaguns is annoying, but I can handle it. Sending them into vets with 3 plasma guns is suicide.

I always like to have alittle of both in my armys. This helps out so much.

Some of the plasma love is left over from 3rd and 4th editions, when it was the default special weapon of choice for anything that could take it.

It still excels against it's target profile (heavy infantry) while being decent against light vehicles, but a price increase, the inability of heavy weapons to reliably stop armor, and an increase in the quantity and quality of cover saves means that plasmas have a lot of competition for their slots.

MagicJuggler wrote:Good luck rolling the 6 to hit the Land Raider as it zips towards your lines...

True, but it has to stop some time to fire all of its weapons.

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, but can your plasma kill tanks

Silly wabbit, that's what railguns are for!

Plasma vets love plasma guns, especially when their melta vets freinds got crushed by those carnifexes with 1 wound left...

You need a source to reliable drop MC's before they reach you. Melta almost garantees a wound, but the status of rapid fire allows a specialized plasma squad to kill a MC in one turn, before they crush your lines.

They are good to kill TEQ's. I think that every army needs a reliable way to handle 2+ minis and MC's too.