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I still see plasma cannons from time to time, but they ar not popular by any strech of the imagination. Still, I think they could have a place.

I plan on using them more in my "take all-comers" lists. They do well vs. MEQ, Hordes, and even TMC's with the S7 AP2. I usually take a Dev Squad with 2 Plasma Cannons and 2 LC or ML and combat squad the two groups.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Nurglitch wrote:Don't forget that Space Marines have a 3+ save and that you have to fail that save before the Plasma Cannon wounds its wielder. Basically you have to roll a 1 followed by a 1 or 2. Their S7 lets them do light anti-vehicle work, particular against open-topped vehicles, and they can eat hordes (that 2+ to wound beats the usual 4+ that you get with frag missiles).

This is almost precicesly why I take them often Sadly, I only have 2 :( Though I find that combo still effective--2 Plasmas, 2 MLs....works well.

I still don't see why no one's mentioned the use of an apothecary.. It lets you ignore one failed save per turn, it doesn't say that it has to be a failed save caused by your opponent. So, your 40 pt apothecary saved your 50 pt devastator 2-3 times in a game and made back his points thrice over.. Of course, this means that your apothecary then can't use his ability for any other casaulties, but would you rather save a 15 pt ablative space marine or a 50 pt plasma cannon gunner?

Phoenix wrote:Plasma cannons are kind of hit or miss weapons. If you are going up against MEQ armies, they can be rather deadly. However they have a few problems. First off, they tend to be a bit on the expensive side. While this isn’t a killer, it does drag down their usefulness a bit. The second is that they get hot. This means that 1 out of ever 6 shots has a chance of killing you and mathematically speaking, about 6% of your shots do actually kill you. This may not seem like a lot, but if you think about 4 guys shooting for 6 turns (a generous allotment if they really are a threat to your enemy) that averages out to 1.3 of your guys dead due to overheats every game. The final factor in them not being the best thing ever is the fact that blast templates are not all that great. Since the rules specify that you have to center the template over a model, it’s fairly easy for your opponent to spread his troops out to minimize your hits. In addition, you have to fire all the shots at the same target and they are resolved sequentially. So after the first template blows a hole in the squad (your opponent can remove casualties from anywhere in the squad remember) it will get harder and harder to get many enemy models under the later templates. Finally, as with any low ap weapon, the effectiveness of it can be significantly mitigated by keeping prime targets for the weapon in cover. Marines in cover are only slightly more bothered by plasma cannons than they are by heavy bolters. Marines in the open however, are smoking piles of slag.

So in the end, unless your opponent is bad and doesn’t properly defend himself against plasma cannons, they end up not being all that great. If, on the other hand, your opponent doesn’t know what to do against them, then they can be hell on wheels against MEQ armies.

actually either in 5th rumors or in 4th rules there will be a rule that the enemy takes casualties after all hits and wounds have been resolved as they all hit simultaneously, so the plasmacannon hits can stack

If I remember correctly you work out to wound before you tanke models off, as long as the unit can see them you can still take wounds.

yea so i'm saying that the template that hits a unit from a dev squad with 4 plasma cannons can in fact stack the templates, as the squad hit can remove casualties after shooting is over if the shooting player decides so

Can someone skilled in mathhammer-fu please tell us the results of a 4-plasmacannon Dev squad firing at 10-man MEQ spaced out 1", both under the 5th ed. blast rules and the current 4th ed. blast rules?

I'll be impressed to see anyone step up to that one, and greatful to see the comparison.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:Gee, people like to use a weapon more when it's good and like to use it less when it sucks? What a surprise!

CLASSIC!

I don't like stuff that sucks...

Well lets see, if the unit of MEQs was in a staggered double line 1" apart I think I can do it.

like so

* * * * *
* * * * *

Okay so curently under 4th ed it goes like this.

The 1.5 inch template hits one marine and gets three partials. So assuming this we get.

4 shots, 3 hit, 3 auto hit marines, 9 partials, 4.5 of which score, leaving us with 7.5 hit marines.

7.5 hit, 6.25 dead, and no one passes their armour save.

against 4 HBs

12 shot, 9 hit, 6 wound, 3 kill Twice as effective.

Against frag MLs (assuming same hit ratio)

4 shot, 3 hit, 3 auto hits and 9 partials, 7.5 hit, 3.75 wounded, 1.25 dead.

Now figuring in extra range as an extra two rounds of shooting you get.

Plasma: at 4 rounds of shooting, 25 dead marines.
Farg MLs: at 6 rounds of shooting, 7.5 dead marines.

So Plasma is way more effective against heavy inf.

Against GEQs (assuming same hit ratios)

4 shots, 3 hit, 3 auto hit guards, 9 partials, 4.5 of which score, leaving us with 7.5 hit guards, 6.25 Dead. Effectiveness the same. (though causes instant death against characters in unit)

HBs

12 shot, 9 hit, 7.5 dead. As effective.

Frag MLs

4 shot, 3 hit, 3 auto hit 9 partials, 7.5 hit, 5 dead. 0.66 repeating tims as effective as PCs.

So for you points shooting at GEQs its probably better taking MLs seeing as they can peirce tank armour better, however, the higher toughness and more heavily armoured your foe gets the Plasma Cannons really shine. So they can wipe Marines where as MLs aren't really all that effective.

So what are the numbers for OEQs and SEQs?

Bastirous666 wrote:yea so i'm saying that the template that hits a unit from a dev squad with 4 plasma cannons can in fact stack the templates, as the squad hit can remove casualties after shooting is over if the shooting player decides so

In 4th edition, blast templates are worked out one at a time. You work out all the wounds, remove models, and then fire the next blast weapon. In 5th eidtion, multiple blast markers (p28 of the leaked pdf) will work like barage weapons, fire the first template and then the others scatter around the initial one in an edge-to-edge fashion. While this will increase the area you cover with templates, it is not likely to be as optimal at killing things as the 3rd edition rules of drop one template and multiply the number of hits and partials by the number of blast template weapons that hit.

I can help I think.

Just kibitzed a 5th edition test game between nids and black templars. The nid player used a 9 deathspiiter warrior unit.

it was a PITA to resolve. Added some serious time to the game, and the player should have probably had at least 4 or 5 small blast templates to accurately count his hits. But when the first shot was a hit, he got around 27-32 hits on marines with a 1 inch spread. When his first shot was a miss, he'd get between 0 and 25 hits depending on his scatter.

Without drawing a chart and without using any data other than 'expected results' I would say that if a 4 plasma cannon dev squad shot at the marine unit with a 1" spread, deployed wide and shallow (2 ranks deep) He would average about 12-13 hits. If he was shooting at a black templar crusade, space wolf blood claws or any unit that was too large for a 2 rank formation that would probably be more like 15-16. Now a miss on the initial shot can have either minimal effect or a drastic effect. A scatter roll of 7 would effect the number of hits significantly if the scatter direction is not lateral. Obviously if the scatter was very large then the entire 'battery' of shots can be wasted.

15-16 hits sounds like a lot. And in the context of 4th edition, it is probably a unit wiper. In 5th edition, it's very likely that your highest priority targets are going to be in 4+ cover. If you get a 'super-hit like 14 or 15, its likely that they'll 'take cover' and spend a turn pinned to take a 3+ cover save.

Plasma cannons are going to be good anti-infantry in 5th edition. But I wouldn't expect them to be much more exciting than heavy bolters on anything other than 2+ saves or tightly packed, oversized marine units. And be prepared to be really fast at resolving barrages or be accused of slow-rolling.

Whats an OEQ or SEQ?

I'm guessing Ork equivalent for OEQ and god knows whatever an SEQ is...

Going on a guess, Plasma would be better against orcs thatn MLs as would HBs be as well. Seeing as they all peirce thier armour, it then goes to strength and mass of fire. If the ocrs are packed the ML becomes a lot better against orcs. (Especially if you knok out the truck with the Krak Missile then poor in the frags at the helpless bastards...) Though Plasma would still be better seeing as they are vulnerable to blasts so they get extra hits or somehting like that. Plus they kill on a two where MLs kill on a 4. So the plasma beats them soundly again.

This is for Orks (are there any equivelents?), mainly just using the previous posters math and adapting it for the purpose (as in, taking out the saving part and adding a partial).

4 shots, 3.3 small blast hits, 1 hit ork + 4 partials (its more than 2 ranks deep, so 1 on each side) per hit, 3.3 auto-hit, 13.2 partials, 9.9 hit by 4 small blasts.

Plasma Cannon, 8.25 wounded, no saves

Frag missile, 4.95 wounded, no saves

Heavy bolters, 12 shots, 9 hits, 6 wounds, no saves

So yea, plasma cannons are the best per gun, but probably not best per point, as HBs are what, 10 points each? They just need to be ~30% cheaper, and they definitely are that much cheaper.

That is of course until you get them more tightly packed, a HBs effeincy will never change, however if the orc players fro some reason ends up putting his orks closer together the plasma cannons can go up exponentially.

At optimum performance they get 7 auto-hits and 6-10 partials. (depending on how you see it. for the purpose of this I am going to go for 6)

So thats

4 shot, 3 hit, 21 auto-hit 18 partials, 30 hit, 25 wounded, 25 killed.

At that level it totally blows the HBs out of the water, so conceivably two units of Plasma Cannon Devs at full effiency could wipe out an entire ork mob in one turn.

Ratbarf wrote:
12 shot, 9 hit, 6 wound, 3 kill Twice as effective.

Erm, wouldn't 12 heavy bolter shots only have 8 hits, or were you rounding it up to 9 so you could have an easy 6 wounds and not 5 1/3 wounds? Also, if that were the case against MEQ, would it be 2 kills, not 3?

Hell, from my math-fu I got 4 HBs doing 1 7/9 wounds vs MEQ

Let us not forget all codex marine players have the option to give tank hunters to their dev squads... aka 4 plaz cannons that are s8 against tanks at a mere cost of 3 pts a marine makes it worth it imho.

Red_Lives wrote:Let us not forget all codex marine players have the option to give tank hunters to their dev squads... aka 4 plaz cannons that are s8 against tanks at a mere cost of 3 pts a marine makes it worth it imho.

but you can give tank hunters to any weapon load out. it's quite good with missile launchers and heavy bolters. not really a point in favor of plasma.

i'd actually say the heavy bolter squad gets the most benefit as it can now threaten AV12, which is a big deal.

"Erm, wouldn't 12 heavy bolter shots only have 8 hits, or were you rounding it up to 9 so you could have an easy 6 wounds and not 5 1/3 wounds? Also, if that were the case against MEQ, would it be 2 kills, not 3?"

Huh, my mistake, but that still just makes PCs better anyways. lol

Unless you have a very good reason to take heavy bolters (facing hordes) all Dev squads ought to be missile launcher based.

A good reason, like, there's cover on the table?

Against Marines in 5+ cover.

HB: 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds, .44 dead Marines.
ML: 1 shot, .67 hits, .56 wounds, .37 dead Marines.

And those HBs cost less. And they have an even bigger edge as the cover gets better. And they do a job you need done, as opposed to one you can probably already do with Las/Plas squads.

That said, HB and ML are the best choices in Dev squads. The other options cost too much. I frequently take a ML Dev squad. But they're not better than HBs.

As I recall, the rule only states that the center of the template must be over an enemy model

They say both. One thing in the rules, the other in the summary at the end. I believe there has been a FAQ that says that the hole only needs to be over the base, but does not need to be centered.

OEQs and SEQs follows the nomenclature established for MEQs and GEQs. OEQs are obviously "Orks and Equivalents" (T4 S6+), while SEQs are obviously "Scouts and Equivalents" (T4 S4+).

Obvious to cat piss men, maybe.

Given that the numbers for "OEQs" are the same as that for MEqs, just without the save in all instances, and the numbers for "SEQs" the same as that for "OEqs," just with a save for frag, I imagine the answer would be equally if not more "obvious" to anyone with some sense and/or a calculator.

Aw, tegeus-Cromis, you're so cute when you're being a pompous flaming troll.

Hes got a point you know. Though he did say it somewhat eloequently....

Seeing as they are all toughness 4 the only difference is the save.

Ratbarf: Except that he doesn't have a point. If someone asks another to do some work for them, then it's inappropriate for a third-party to butt in, make insinuations about somene's hygiene, and point out that someone could do it himself. Obviously that someone has reasons for not doing it themselves, and demanding they do it themselves is pointless, making that demand rudely is not just pointless, it's doing so purely to attack that person: hence flaming.

Since you're the one running the numbers, and I'm facing a time crunch these days, I figured I'd ask you using what seemed like a reasonable extension of local jargon to cover the T/Sv gaps between Marines and Imperial Guard. Perhaps we should amend SEQ to mean "Sisters and Equivalent" as that would cover Sisters, and various Aspect Warriors, and so on.

I am pointing out that when you ask for an answer that is itself trivial to produce in terms that no one else in the discourse understands, it is extremely rude to be snippy to the people asking you to define your terms on the basis that they are "obvious." Rudeness deserves rudeness.

Hey, remember the first rule of the interent: "when I'm being snippy, I'm defending myself justifiably. When you're being snippy you're a troll."

Personally, I thought SEQ would be sisters/scorpion and equivilent, which would be interesting against Frags and HBs.