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Flavius Infernus wrote:If Necrons prove viable and become more common, the prevalence of AR13 quantum shielding will make lascannons more important in all-comers lists--especially in the first couple of turns where the net effect of knocking down a command barge or ghost ark early will carry through the whole game.

I've actually noticed (probably due to lack of the actual models for heavy tank builds) a LOT of spider scarab builds with the storm lord. Plays all hell vs the mech IG lines and I'm actually thinking of putting in more flamers and or hell hounds or even a sentinel squad with flamer or plasma cannons. banewolf may also prove useful too. (too bad it's competing with the valks I'll need vs all the other mech armies)

also popular seem to be the quake and shifting landscape w/e thingy that makes things dangerous terrain.

wait you cant move and shoot a grenade launcher? how do they follow heavy weapons rules? im confused

KplKeegan wrote: Unfortunately, the two best units for Las Cannons are '...' and the Vanquisher w/ a Las Cannon on its hull

Vanquisher and best unit in the same sentence!

More on topic: Heavy weapons are very important for foot guard armies IMO. There are some armies that just can't be chased down on foot, and there are some units that your blobs just don't want to handle up close and personal. Autocannons and lascannons should both be included in all-foot guard lists IMO.

dreadfury101 wrote:wait you cant move and shoot a grenade launcher? how do they follow heavy weapons rules? im confused

Grenade launchers are assault 1 weapons

You are thinking of missle launchers I think which are heavy 1

So, the "rule" for special weapons is that, given their range, they don't get many shots, but they do lots of damage per shot. Heavy weapons, on the other hand, do much less damage, but they make up for it by being able to shoot for several turns (given their range).

Grenade launchers are like heavy weapons in that they have long range (for a special weapon), and they don't do very much damage. Thus, you need to get a lot of shots off, which is made possible by said range. They behave like a heavy weapon in the way they do damage, not in their profile.

The real question is if lascannons behave like special weapons or not.

Grundz wrote:
Thanks for the math buddy

~2000-2500pts
times ~25 autocannons = about 7 transports a turn. 3.5 if they all have cover

I'll takes thems oddses

I just saw one of your lists: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/406402.page#3494609
1500 points, 6 autocannons, 4 lascannons, many meltas and few GLs. I want to find out the shooting power of your power blobs against rhinos. So at 1500 ponts you are able to wreck or explode 0,33 AV 11 vehicles (only with ACs, with cover, without orders) or 0,5 vehicles with succesful BiD order. OR you can immobilize, wreck and explode 0,583 vehicles or 0,875 vehicles with succesful BiD order. Maybe you would like to see how many Rhinos/Razors your enemy will have at 1500 points if he would like to spam them...see for yourself in army list section.

Want to see the math?With plesure.I will use the variant with succesful BiD order (which also has 16,66% chance to fail since there are no voxes in your list, remember this!) and variant with immobilization beeing success (but many times you just need to destroy them, remember this also!).
You have 12 AC shots from 2 units. You can fire 6 shots at two different rhinos. 4,5 hits each rhino. 1,5 penetrates and 0,75 glance each. Cover - 0,75 pens and 0,375 glance each. 0,375 + 0,0625 = 0,4375 successful result.
43,75% chance that you manage to immobilize, wreck or explode two rhinos. Or 87,5% chance that you manage to immobilize, wreck or explode one rhino if you use all your ACs just against one.

You CAN stop ONE rhino in one turn with ACs if you are a bit lucky (succesful orders AND better results).

Do you really "takes thems oddses"?

Not even mention the situation in which you encounter Chimeras (AV 12,10,10) or Wave serpents (AV 12,12,10). You will do basically nothing to them with ACs...or if you run into Razorback spam, where immobilize result is not enough...
...so the point is, is it REALLY worth it to take ACs for power blobs?

hrm.. so from the sounds of things las cannons are gonna be worth it more or less.. The debate is now going onto flamers vs grenade launchers? or maybe stay with melta and plasma?

I'm also kind of wondering how missle launchers fit into this thing.

Lothar wrote:I just saw one of your lists: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/406402.page#3494609
1500 points, 6 autocannons, 4 lascannons, many meltas and few GLs. I want to find out the shooting power of your power blobs against rhinos. So at 1500 ponts you are able to wreck or explode 0,33 AV 11 vehicles (only with ACs, with cover, without orders) or 0,5 vehicles with succesful BiD order. OR you can immobilize, wreck and explode 0,583 vehicles or 0,875 vehicles with succesful BiD order. Maybe you would like to see how many Rhinos/Razors your enemy will have at 1500 points if he would like to spam them...see for yourself in army list section.
Do you really "takes thems oddses"?
...so the point is, is it REALLY worth it to take ACs for power blobs?

Yeah that list isnt maximized for ranged firepower and is probably too melta/lascannon heavy, IG ramps up and up very quickly at higher point values. IIRC that round I was expecting a bunch of higher av vehicles. It lost in the finals not due to lack of firepower, but because I didnt have enough outflanking/fast elements. One of the reasons I've been leaning towards al'harim lately is I can show up in your deployment zone with like 8 killpoints worth of guys and win the mission while a majority of your forces are tied up in cc with a bunch of fools that try to grab your arms and legs while the commissar stabs you with a powersword.
Creed gets sniper rifles or grenade launchers because he is usually tucked away somewhere safe and doesn't shoot all game
As a note, I rarely care about an immobilized razorback or rhino. What I care about is if the other guy can get a high enough force concentration (usually in cc) to overwhelm power blob squads, a razorback taking a pot shot at a command squad with a lascannon every turn I couldn't give a crap about. using your math, even an 8 razorback list is going to lascannon down an average of like 15 guardsmen in cover over the course 6 turns, if I dont kill any, who cares about the transports as long as they aren't sitting on an objective? You pop them to reduce mobility pick away at the real threats.
Foot guard isn't about raw effectiveness of all of your models, its about denying most armies that take tons of melta/plasma the ability to actually use these weapons, every point you spend on a meltagun is basically wasted, every point you spend on a lascannon, is wasted. Missle launchers are largely ineffective if you spead properly except if close combat just ended, Its not uncommon that I run up against lists where 30% of the points are on totally needless upgrades that do nothing to my particular list. So yeah, raw effectivenesswise, some choices aren't the greatest, but its enough to carry the day when you have a 500-1000pt advantage because your tourney opponent wasnt expecting meat-tide.

Besides raw firepower, there's also
-getting a 60mm base into cc gives you significantly more guardsmen making combat
-you can soak a wound on a base (meh its a 5 points model but still)

-as for flamer vs grenade launchers, flamers are usually more effective against the things that scare foot guard (usually fragile, high attack CC squads or big groups that are straight up better than guardsmen) but grenade launchers give you a (poor) anti tank option.

Another point, not on lascannons specifically, but heavy weapon teams in squads in general:

I was surprised how the HWT extends the squad's reach a couple of weeks ago when a vet squad with a 50mm heavy weapon base bailed out of their immobilized transport and ran for an objective. Putting the back edge of that big base just barely within 2" of the hatch before they move gets you a couple of inches extra distance compared with a non-HWT squad.

The heavy weapon team models are also excellent for ensuring you get all of your blob's models into base contact in assault. If the HWT base is in contact, then other models in the unit just need to get within 2" of that 60mm base...