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Kanluwen wrote:It's been pretty much everywhere

'Standard' procedure when there's no electrical outlets is just to leave them sitting in direct sunlight and it can recharge them without damaging them.

Throwing them into the fire damages the internals and means that after the clips are used, they can't be recharged again.

They can but the amount of shots they can hold drops more quickly than just recharging them normally.
I believe it's also a way of manufacturing 'Hot-shot' rounds used by Long-Lases

The reason in Gaunts Ghosts the gave for carrying Auto weapons is that Las weapons are hard to hid the muzzle flashes and impssible to silence, whereas auto can.

'Hot-shot Rounds' are completely different.

They use a different chemical mixture for the power cell, which produces more power for fewer shots. That's been explained before as well.

And again: "Traitor General", where they carried slug weaponry, they used autopistols with suppressors.

How good is actually Autogun against mankind enemies?
If it is worse than Lasgun then there is not much point in using it, right?

It depends on what enemies.

Against most unarmored mutants and heretics: they'll be overkill.

Against pretty much everything else or anything with armor: it's underkill.

It is primarily used by PDF and enforcers who are more likely to fire upno unarmoured cultists/law breakers

Kanluwen wrote:It depends on what enemies.

Against most unarmored mutants and heretics: they'll be overkill.

Against pretty much everything else or anything with armor: it's underkill.

I think about it this way:

Orks - good, except for the extra armored ones.
Tyranids - good against smaller ones, useless against bigger ones.
Chaos - good vs. cultist and weak vs. everything else.
Space Marines - no effect at all.
Necrons - again no effect at all.
Tau - maybe against Kroot, FW, Vespid or even stealth-suits. But against battle-suits - useless.
Eldar - all Eldar have good armor so - useless.
Dark Eldar - maybe good against Mandrakes - useless against everything else.
Imperial Guard - even the Guard have armor for protection against bullets.

But I am also looking like this: if you have a Autogun, and get AP ammunition for it, reflex scope for precision, grenade launcher and round magazine for more bullets it may be actually be better than Lasgun in firepower.

Against anything other than unarmored heretics and rabble rousing mutants: autoguns are effectively useless.

It's part of the reason why the Guard use Lasguns and not Autoguns

Variant of the standard lasgun, like the famed Hellgun and Hellpistol carried by IG Stormtroopers and other elite forces, also offer more armor-piercing capabilities than any man-portable autogun. regardless of their ammo load-out.

Sure, they might require a backpack power supply, but when you can burn right through all but the heaviest of power armor and tote around four hundred shots, its worth its extra weight in gold.

For anti-vehicle/Really Big Things work, the man-portable lascannon simply cannot be beat (in DH rules, this weapon dishes out a beastly 5d10+10 damage, and ignores the first 10 points of any target's Armor Rating.). It only holds 5 shots but, really, did you expect to take on an entire company of tanks by yourself?

With regards to their production, the standard lasgun is stamped out by forgeworlds by the millions, but this is not to say that the bullet-thrower is obsolete. The forges of Gunmetal Hive, on Scintilla, produces some of the finest solid-ammunition weapons in the Imperium, perhaps the most famous of which is the Hecutor autopistol, carried by Harlon Nayl in the Eisenhorne and Ravenor series. This hive has, because of its forges, based its entire culture around possessing a firearm, and having the skill to wield it effectively.

htj wrote:

Melissia wrote:Any standard electrical outlet will do.

I remember reading somewhere that a lasgun's clip can be recharged in times of dire necessity by putting it in a fire. Wasn't good for it, though. Where did I read that? It was in one of the Codices.

I believe they mention the recharging in a fire in the book 13 Hours or something like that.

harvesterofsorrow_68 wrote:

htj wrote:

Melissia wrote:Any standard electrical outlet will do.

I remember reading somewhere that a lasgun's clip can be recharged in times of dire necessity by putting it in a fire. Wasn't good for it, though. Where did I read that? It was in one of the Codices.

I believe they mention the recharging in a fire in the book 13 Hours or something like that.

it is also in Both Imperial infantryman's Uplifting primer's, and I believe it may be in the current guard Codex(definitely in the last); that is downstairs so i will grab it then edit.

Edit: It is not explicitly stated anywhere in the new Guard 'dex; however, it is heavily implied and a logical extension that fire tossing can recharge Power cells via the last line in the Las-pistol entry in the Wargear list: The cells can be recharged by exposure to heat and light. Fire contains both heat and Light; therefore throwing a power cell in a fire is most certainly exposing it to heat and light. nothing is said about fire-tossing, so nothing is said about the potential to damage the power cell there.

The primer does explicitly states that Fire-tossing is both a Viable way to charge the power cell and is damaging to the Cell, so it should only be done in the Dire-est of circumstances.

Melissia wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

wizard12 wrote:They're also used by resistance fighters and IG units on stealth mission (thats if Gaunts Ghosts are anything to go by), due to the fact autoguns can be silenced whereas lasguns can't.

A lasgun would still be quieter than a "silenced" autogun.

False.

Air suddenly raised to superheated levels is quite loud. That's what causes the thunder associated with lightning.

Las weapons quite literally CANNOT be silenced because of this. They will always be loud, they will always give away the firer's position, and so on.

Lightning and its associated 'thunder' are more akin to the effects of a Tesla 'Death Ray' or an electrolaser which is like a giant Taser. The sound associated with high energy Lasers would occur only at the the end of the beam and the resulting explosion as the beam hits it's target. Lasers are light amplification and for all intents and purposes the beam would be 'silent'.

Personally, I think the Laser weapon in 40k isn't a laser in the way we understand it at all. Perhaps it's some form of a particle beam?

Here's an interesting 500 trillion watt laser in our time.


Oops, I said trillion megawatts!!

Las-guns in WH40k make a "hiss-crack" sound when fired as the beam/las-bolt passes through the air towards the target.

They're not very loud (compared to a modern rifle) but are definitely not silent, and cannot be silenced, as one cannot reduce the heat of the beam and maintain lethality.

Psienesis wrote:Las-guns in WH40k make a "hiss-crack" sound when fired as the beam/las-bolt passes through the air towards the target.

They're not very loud (compared to a modern rifle) but are definitely not silent, and cannot be silenced, as one cannot reduce the heat of the beam and maintain lethality.

It wouldn't be the beam of the Laser then. Maybe it's the 'hiss-crack' of it's associated power discharge capacitor releasing the energy for the beam?

terminator44 wrote:Based on what I remember from the Dark Heresy rulebook (don't have it with me), a shot from an autogun is about as powerful as a shot from a lasgun. In that particular game I prefer the autogun, as it can fire in 10 round bursts while the lasgun can only fire 3 round bursts at most. However, I recall instances in the Gaunt's Ghosts novels of lasguns being fired on full auto, so that rule is probably there for balance reasons more than anything else. There would literally be no reason to take an autogun over a lasgun if the lasgun could do everything the autogun can. Except for Manstopper (AP) rounds.

As for attachments, I believe you can place the same ones on both weapons as their dimensions are similar. You can add, among other things, bayonets (standard or monoblade!), Executioners (single-use underbarrel flamethrowers), telescopic sights, and laser sights. A recurring joke in my DH group is that a lasgun with a laser sight counts as twin-linked.

I wouldn't use game mechanics as indicator,especially from the FFG(they completely ruined starships in Rouge Trader,they got sizes wrong and the acceleration figures for example).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:Against anything other than unarmored heretics and rabble rousing mutants: autoguns are effectively useless.

It's part of the reason why the Guard use Lasguns and not Autoguns

Lasguns are also stronger,most novels show them doing damage which has been calced in multimegajoule range.

Could be the hiss of super-heating air as the las passes through it. In Star Wars, blaster work because a beam of light is channeled through some kind of gas and a focusing array, producing the screeching killy light we've all seen in the movies.

Las-weapons in WH40k aren't quite as well-detailed, technologically, so we can really only guess at how the weapon produces its lethal discharge. We know that they're more lethal with more power. We know the powercells can be recharged in an open flame, as well as any electrical outlet. All of the BL fluff gives them some variant of a hiss-crack sound effect, and Abnett tells us that they can't be silenced.

In the latter case, we can extrapolate that the sound is caused by the laser passing through the air (otherwise, just wrap the stock of the rifle in enough padding to muffle the sound of the capacitor. A pillow can silence a small-calibre handgun; given enough pillows, you can muffle a shotgun...).

Thing is... we, just like the common IG trooper, have no idea how they work. They just work, if you follow your proper care rituals. Since they auto-cauterize injuries and can ignite flammables, it's safe to assume a high temperature of the beam, as opposed to something in the microwave frequency, which would blow great, bloody chunks out of someone as the water in their bodies super-heats and expands and not set quite so much on fire. Theatrics aside, though, I think since we don't have a clear description of how these guns shoot killy-light, or even if all lasweapons across the Imperium work the same.

Could be the beam, could be the capacitor discharge, could be an effect generated from the ephemera by the war-spirit within the weapon, could be the legion of gnomes in the barrel casting a volley of magic death-rays from their Wands of Death (and Rays). *shrugs* Only the Mechanicus knows.

The lasbolt moves at the speed of light. So we wouldn't actually notice it moving, it would appear as a single beam of coherent light. Its sound is described as "the crack of ionized air", and yes, it's from air suddenly being superheated, like a tiny lightning bolt would.

This ought to be fun...

http://www.unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=27_82&products_id=534

The thing is, the logistical requirements to resupply a Guard unit with Lasgun ammo are far simpler than the requirements to resupply with solid shot. Honestly, to re-supply a Guard unit with Lasgun ammo, they would probably plug their power packs into some sort of recharger that runs on promethium (like all of their machinery) and that'd be it. To resupply with projectiles....well, depending on if its cased or caseless, you may have to transport brass back, but you still have to ship in tons of ammunition.

To be honest, that's why I've always felt that the most common Guard squad heavy weapon should be the Multilaser, rather than the Heavy Bolter.

Autoguns have roughly the same effectivness as a Lasgun.


and the term "Autogun" simply refers to any solid slug weapon used by the Imperium. Shotguns exempt of course.



all of our modern firearms would be considered Autoguns in the 41st millenium.



Autoguns are more commonly used by PDF and Civilian forces that don't have good access to a supply of Lasguns. the Autoweapons are easier to make on the planet using resources common to all planets, while the lasguns require specific equipment and resources(focusing Crystals for example)


to make Autoguns you just need metal to make the gun and the componants for Gunpowder(or any other easily ignited, quick burning, solid)



Lasguns are more desirable due to the ease of recharging the ammo. just lay it in the sun or plug it in.

Autoguns are simpler, but less convieniant.


Autoguns are also less prone to failure by getting dirty and are easier to clean. a Lasgun can potentially explode if it gets too dirty.

I wouldn't use game mechanics as indicator,especially from the FFG(they completely ruined starships in Rouge Trader,they got sizes wrong and the acceleration figures for example).

I haven't read the Rogue Trader rules yet, but the similarity is also supported by the Necromunda (from Specialist Games, which is a division of Games Workshop) rules, where lasguns and autoguns have the same strength (Strength 3, just as they are in the IG Codex).

At least the rules for the various games are usually consistent on how much damage a weapon can do. With fluff, it depends entirely on the author and how powerful they need to be for the plot's sake.

Ogiwan wrote:No no no no no. The reason that the Imperium uses lasguns is because of logistics.

Consider it. Transporting boxes of ammunition is cumbersome. But, transporting the same fuel that runs Chimerae, AND Leman Russ tanks AND whatever generator that recharges lasgun clips?

Hell, I seem to recall reading something about being able to recharge lasgun clips inside a Chimera.

Lasgun clips arent charged by a generator, they a charged by essentially any source of heat or intense light.
As for autoguns, i was reading a novel once, i cant remember which one, and the orks the IG were fighting against started using their dead as armour, so lasguns didnt do anything besides burn the corpses, and at one point one of the officers says that he wished they more weapons with solid ammunition

mebobsayhi9 wrote:

Ogiwan wrote:No no no no no. The reason that the Imperium uses lasguns is because of logistics.

Consider it. Transporting boxes of ammunition is cumbersome. But, transporting the same fuel that runs Chimerae, AND Leman Russ tanks AND whatever generator that recharges lasgun clips?

Hell, I seem to recall reading something about being able to recharge lasgun clips inside a Chimera.

Lasgun clips arent charged by a generator, they a charged by essentially any source of heat or intense light.

Actually no. They're charged by a generator in most cases.
Charging by "any source of heat or intense light" is something done in an emergency. It damages the cells permanently, in the case of throwing them into the fire, and makes them incredibly unstable to be fired afterwards.

Charging by a "source of intense light" is different as the generators that they use to recharge the power cells can be run off solar power.

As for autoguns, i was reading a novel once, i cant remember which one, and the orks the IG were fighting against started using their dead as armour, so lasguns didnt do anything besides burn the corpses, and at one point one of the officers says that he wished they more weapons with solid ammunition

I don't remember that novel.
But "solid ammunition" wouldn't do anything in that case, at least not ammunition in the caliber of autoguns.
Likely it was referring to the heavy bolter/autocannon ammunition--which always seems to run low when fighting Orks.

Grey Templar wrote:and the term "Autogun" simply refers to any solid slug weapon used by the Imperium.

False. Autogun refers to caseless automatic weapons, such as of course the titular autogun, which is a somewhat large caliber assault rifle. Stub weapons refer to other solid slug weapons, anything from revolvers, to bolt-action hunting rifles, to heavy machineguns (the heavy stubbers used by the Guard being the only real example in-game of these, as they're generally considered inferior to autogun style weapons in-universe, being more prone to jamming and having a lesser rate of fire).

Basically, stub weapons are what we use today for the most part. They're what civilians would use-- autopistols and autoguns are a bit too expensive for most civilians.

Autoguns are no more effective against Orks than lasguns are, and in many cases less effective because of smaller clip sizes requiring more ammunition conservation.

RE: Lasgun vs. Autogun

Inquisitor may be a good reference for our comparisons here.

Lasgun (Mars Pattern, which is the most common) vs Autogun:
Range: Both effective at short range.
Rate of Fire: Maximum 3 Shots per Action (Semi 3) vs Maximum 10 Shots per Action (Full Auto 10)
Accuracy: Both equal.
Damage: 2D6 vs 2D6+2
Magazine: 60 vs 30
Reload Time: Both 2 Actions.
Weight: 25 vs 30

Both types of ammunition are common items in campaigns, and Autoguns have a selection of special ammunition avaliable (Flechette Rounds, Dum Dum Rounds, Man Stopper Shells).

From this we can say:

Autogun:
+ Higher Rate of Fire
+ Higher Damage Output
+ Extra Ammunition
- Lower Magazine Capacity
- Heavier than MP Lasgun

MP Lasgun:
+ Higher Magazine Capacity
+ Lighter than an Autogun
+ Power Packs are easily recharged
- Slower Rate of Fire
- Lower Damage Output

So, what would I rather equip my guardsmen with? Given that the IG often have to relocate on foot, I'd give them Lasguns. Simply because they are lighter, require less magazines, and the ammunition is recyclable. Following up on that, I would give the Veterans Autoguns, because they have a slightly higher damage output, and the Vets would be able to maintain them. By giving the Autos to the vets, ammo will not be a large problem, as only a few select units would have them.

Just my 0.02 AUD.

Scott.

ScottM96 wrote:RE: Lasgun vs. Autogun

Inquisitor may be a good reference for our comparisons here.

Lasgun (Mars Pattern, which is the most common) vs Autogun:
Range: Both effective at short range.
Rate of Fire: Maximum 3 Shots per Action (Semi 3) vs Maximum 10 Shots per Action (Full Auto 10)
Accuracy: Both equal.
Damage: 2D6 vs 2D6+2
Magazine: 60 vs 30
Reload Time: Both 2 Actions.
Weight: 25 vs 30

Both types of ammunition are common items in campaigns, and Autoguns have a selection of special ammunition avaliable (Flechette Rounds, Dum Dum Rounds, Man Stopper Shells).

From this we can say:

Autogun:
+ Higher Rate of Fire
+ Higher Damage Output
+ Extra Ammunition
- Lower Magazine Capacity
- Heavier than MP Lasgun

MP Lasgun:
+ Higher Magazine Capacity
+ Lighter than an Autogun
+ Power Packs are easily recharged
- Slower Rate of Fire
- Lower Damage Output

So, what would I rather equip my guardsmen with? Given that the IG often have to relocate on foot, I'd give them Lasguns. Simply because they are lighter, require less magazines, and the ammunition is recyclable. Following up on that, I would give the Veterans Autoguns, because they have a slightly higher damage output, and the Vets would be able to maintain them. By giving the Autos to the vets, ammo will not be a large problem, as only a few select units would have them.

Just my 0.02 AUD.

Scott.

It's either;
-make TRILLIONS upon TRILLIONS of bullets for your men to fire at the BILLIONS of enemies to the Imperium.
-Give the basic foot soldier a gun that can be recharged......

I know my choice if I was in charge.

ScottM96 wrote:Lasgun (Mars Pattern, which is the most common) vs Autogun:
Range: Both effective at short range.
Rate of Fire: Maximum 3 Shots per Action (Semi 3) vs Maximum 10 Shots per Action (Full Auto 10)
Accuracy: Both equal.
Damage: 2D6 vs 2D6+2
Magazine: 60 vs 30
Reload Time: Both 2 Actions.
Weight: 25 vs 30

1: The lasgun having no full auto feature is a balance feature for Inquisitor and Dark Heresy. It gives an advantage to Autoguns so there's actually a reason to take them, instead of making lasguns overpowered.

2: The lasgun having a MERE 60 shot pack is a balance feature for Inquisitor Dark Heresy. If it had the hundreds of shots per laspack as it does in the fluff, it'd be supremely advantageous over other weapons and thus overpowered. The 30 bullet magazine used by autoguns is still quite a bit smaller than 300 shots from a lasgun as described in the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, or the hundreds of shots described in... well, EVERY Imperial Guard focused Black Library book.

3: In Dark Heresy-- which I should remind you is more recent fluff, Lasguns do 1d10+3 energy damage, not just 2d6. Autoguns do 1d10+3 impact damage, not 2d6+2. Impact damage is also more readily resisted than energy damage (energy damage hurts machines more for than impact damage, for example).


In lore, autoguns only have two advantages-- special ammunition and the ability to be suppressed. Lasguns have otherwise equivalent rates of fire, equivalent damage, greater accuracy, equivalent or greater range, easier logistics, a massively greater magazine size, and the ability to adjust power levels of shots without changing magazines.

Kommissar Kel wrote:

Melissia wrote:Any standard electrical outlet will do.

That's why my guard units have an X-box and Flat screen TV hooked up in their Chimera: it has plenty of standard electrical outlets!

Spoiler:

this thread meant for facetiousness and humor only, if you take it seriously, there is an onus on you to step away from the computer, and watch cartoons; clearly you need a funny-break

I am so seeing a wonderful diarama there of a squad sitting around watching blood bowl on the side of their chimera.

Kanluwen wrote:It depends on what enemies.

Against most unarmored mutants and heretics: they'll be overkill.

Against pretty much everything else or anything with armor: it's underkill.

Tell that to the marines and guardsmen fighting on Vraks. The renegade infantrymen were ALL armed with autoguns, and managed to inflict horrendous casualties on both the Krieg Guardsmen and the Dark Angels and Red Scorpion space marine chapters.

Which they could have done if they had lasguns too...

Melissia wrote:Which they could have done if they had lasguns too...

True, but i'm just pointing out that lasgun > autogun is not true. It's more like lasgun = autogun in effectiveness (ruleswise too!)