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One thing that's vitally important when rolling plasma (especially IG plasma), is to ROLL EACH MODEL SEPARATELY.
If you're are rapid firing, always roll each model's dice two at a time, not all together. One model could roll double 1s, and take two wounds. You only loose one model, instead of two.

1st gunner: 2, 4
2nd gunner: 4, 6
3rd gunner: 1, 1

Two wounds are allocated to the 3rd gunner, who then takes two saves.

As opposed to rolling 2, 4, 4, 6, 1, 1 all at once.
Two wounds are allocated to two separate gunners, and each take one save. With 5+ or 4+, you will likely loose both.

^^ McGibs said what I said, but much more eloquently. Read his post!

DoW

 McGibs wrote:
One thing that's vitally important when rolling plasma (especially IG plasma), is to ROLL EACH MODEL SEPARATELY.
If you're are rapid firing, always roll each model's dice two at a time, not all together. One model could roll double 1s, and take two wounds. You only lose one model, instead of two.

1st gunner: 2, 4
2nd gunner: 4, 6
3rd gunner: 1, 1

Two wounds are allocated to the 3rd gunner, who then takes two saves.

As opposed to rolling 2, 4, 4, 6, 1, 1 all at once.
Two wounds are allocated to two separate gunners, and each take one save. With 5+ or 4+, you will likely lose both.

Now, I've never done this. It makes sense, but I'm a massive fan of fast rolling. When you have a time limit, it just gets into your head that fast rolling is most optimal, which this clearly contradicts. Good advice, even though it should have been obvious -_-

Sorry DoW, missed your post when I was writing mine :p

Rolling separately doesn't really take that much time. Only a few models are ever rolling plasma in any given turn, and only if theyre rapid firing. Each one only rolls two dice, so its not like you have to sit around counting them out. Just have your pool of shots, then pick them up and roll them two at a time.

1st guy: *roll*, one hit *put aside hit*
2nd guy: *roll* two hits *put aside hits*
3rd guy: *roll* one hit, one gets hot *put aside hit*
*roll armour save* failed *remove model*

*pick up hits and roll wounds*

If your opponent bitches about it (oh no, precious seconds!), tell that that fastrolling plasma die is technically illegal, as it's on a per-model basis.

I like medic packs and carapace command squad as the plasma gun carriers, so I do not have to worry.
The issue about losing a model is that it takes away quite an important model to lose. It can easily neuter your expensive squad.

Get's hot is a model-specific rule, so you have to shoot for each model separately.

MFletch wrote:
I like medic packs and carapace command squad as the plasma gun carriers, so I do not have to worry.
The issue about losing a model is that it takes away quite an important model to lose. It can easily neuter your expensive squad.

A veteran with carapace and a plasma gun is 25 points. Although he has a significant chance of dying over the course of a few turns, he will likely kill way more than 25 points. Sure he could fry himself, but he's just as likely to strip a hull point from a death scythe.

 Omegus wrote:

MFletch wrote:
I like medic packs and carapace command squad as the plasma gun carriers, so I do not have to worry.
The issue about losing a model is that it takes away quite an important model to lose. It can easily neuter your expensive squad.

A veteran with carapace and a plasma gun is 25 points. Although he has a significant chance of dying over the course of a few turns, he will likely kill way more than 25 points. Sure he could fry himself, but he's just as likely to strip a hull point from a death scythe.

But that is a really bad gamble. Either in your example he takes the hull point which is good or dies which is very bad else nothing happens.

When a model with carapace and plasma rapid fires he has about 1 in 6 chance of dying. This means in your own turn without any help from the enemy you have took away a fair proportion of a units firepower.
There are worse units at shooting but none of them will kill themselves.

MFletch wrote:

 Omegus wrote:

MFletch wrote:
I like medic packs and carapace command squad as the plasma gun carriers, so I do not have to worry.
The issue about losing a model is that it takes away quite an important model to lose. It can easily neuter your expensive squad.

A veteran with carapace and a plasma gun is 25 points. Although he has a significant chance of dying over the course of a few turns, he will likely kill way more than 25 points. Sure he could fry himself, but he's just as likely to strip a hull point from a death scythe.

But that is a really bad gamble. Either in your example he takes the hull point which is good or dies which is very bad else nothing happens.

When a model with carapace and plasma rapid fires he has about 1 in 6 chance of dying. This means in your own turn without any help from the enemy you have took away a fair proportion of a units firepower.
There are worse units at shooting but none of them will kill themselves.

Unfortunately that's the risk you run with using Plasma weaponry. Eventually they WILL blow up & kill you. That model has a 1/6 chance of dying (your stats) but a MUCH larger chance of killing a TEQ. There may be worse shooting units out there that don't kill themselves (read: safer), but they probably aren't going to threaten a TMC either (what the OP was targeting).

~Vryce

That's not a bad gamble at all, considering the significant chance you have of rolling something between those two outliers. Sure, a rapid firing vet will kill himself 1/6, but he will drop two terminators 1/4.

 Omegus wrote:
That's not a bad gamble at all, considering the significant chance you have of rolling something between those two outliers. Sure, a rapid firing vet will kill himself 1/6, but he will drop two terminators 1/4.

Actually is about 1/13 of dropping two terminators. Assuming carapace you have 1/2 chance of killing some terminators, but you have 1/6 of dying. Yes, it more likely not to die but that is not saying much given how unlikely any of your other guns are killing your own units.

I like Plasma CCS more, but plasma vets are still very good.

The key to remember, is if they make it more than one round of firing, you win. I usually count them as a one shot weapon unit. Them dying is a part of it, guardsmen die, its what they do.

If you run carapace, they will live longer. Something I have recently been trying out. Plas vets are great for forcing leadership checks on termies as well as wasting away a handful of them. After running the numbers they are not as good as I thought they were. But that was purely Plasma guns.The other thing to remember is to shoot those lasguns or shotguns.

 Griddlelol wrote:
Now, I've never done this. It makes sense, but I'm a massive fan of fast rolling. When you have a time limit, it just gets into your head that fast rolling is most optimal, which this clearly contradicts. Good advice, even though it should have been obvious -_-

It's really easy to do this w/ color coding. My typical vet squad will look like:

2 red dice (plasma 1)
2 green dice (plasma 2)
2 blue dice (plasma 3)
1 yellow die (sergeant's potentially called pistol shot)
12 white dice (lasgunners)

one fistful of cheerfully colored dice and it's a happy medium of fast dice and separating attacks

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:
Now, I've never done this. It makes sense, but I'm a massive fan of fast rolling. When you have a time limit, it just gets into your head that fast rolling is most optimal, which this clearly contradicts. Good advice, even though it should have been obvious -_-

It's really easy to do this w/ color coding. My typical vet squad will look like:

2 red dice (plasma 1)
2 green dice (plasma 2)
2 blue dice (plasma 3)
1 yellow die (sergeant's potentially called pistol shot)
12 white dice (lasgunners)

one fistful of cheerfully colored dice and it's a happy medium of fast dice and separating attacks

Logic has occurred here.

MFletch wrote:

 Omegus wrote:
That's not a bad gamble at all, considering the significant chance you have of rolling something between those two outliers. Sure, a rapid firing vet will kill himself 1/6, but he will drop two terminators 1/4.

Actually is about 1/13 of dropping two terminators. Assuming carapace you have 1/2 chance of killing some terminators, but you have 1/6 of dying. Yes, it more likely not to die but that is not saying much given how unlikely any of your other guns are killing your own units.

9
Actually, you've 19.75% chance of dropping 2 termi's. 44.4% chance of hitting both, 44% of them failing both, 19.75% chance of both happening. 4^2/6^2*4^2/6^2.

Blaggard wrote:

MFletch wrote:

 Omegus wrote:
That's not a bad gamble at all, considering the significant chance you have of rolling something between those two outliers. Sure, a rapid firing vet will kill himself 1/6, but he will drop two terminators 1/4.

Actually is about 1/13 of dropping two terminators. Assuming carapace you have 1/2 chance of killing some terminators, but you have 1/6 of dying. Yes, it more likely not to die but that is not saying much given how unlikely any of your other guns are killing your own units.

9
Actually, you've 19.75% chance of dropping 2 termi's. 44.4% chance of hitting both, 44% of them failing both, 19.75% chance of both happening. 4^2/6^2*4^2/6^2.

Do not want to discuss mathematics :(

(1/2) to hit
(5/6) to wound
(2/3) fail inv. save

So 10/36 any given shot doing the business. So (10/36)^2 doing the business twice, it happens that 13*(10/36)^2 is about 1.

I forgot about the wounding and missed some other stuff, but anything that results in >1 with chance is wrong. To the spreadsheet!

MFletch wrote:
Do not want to discuss mathematics :(

(1/2) to hit
(5/6) to wound
(2/3) fail inv. save

So 10/36 any given shot doing the business. So (10/36)^2 doing the business twice, it happens that 13*(10/36)^2 is about 1.

Just wanted to point out that vets have a better chance that 1/2 to ht, they are BS4, so 2/3 hit not 1/2.

What's the pros and cons of plasmavets vs plasma CCS?

I've been adding a second plasma pistol to my sgt for an extra plasma shot (using the gunslinger rule), for giggles.

Normally my company commander is my warlord, so sticking him with a fistful of plasmas is just begging him to be targetted and losing the Warlord VP.

The Pros are easy

Vets:
Pros-
10 men instead of 5
Can take shotguns
Can fit both 3 special weapons and a heavy weapon in the same squad
Cons-
more expensive
Leadershp is -1

CCS:
Pros-
Orders (thats a big one)
can take 4 special weapons
High LD
Smaller, less noticed squad
Cons-
not scoring
easy to force ld test on
cannot fit 4 special weapons and heavy

I take 2X CCS, one is my warlord along with a heavy weapon and standard manning the quad gun and trowing out orders to the IS's with heavy weapons. The other is 3X special weapons and standard and charging forwards with some vets and SWS's

You know what would really help (at least against big nasties)? If the Imperial Guard would install some radios in their damn Chimeras so we can issue orders to (and within) them.

What a stupid restriction...

Anyway, with regards to shooting other stuff, this guy nails it:

UMGuy wrote:The key to remember, is if they make it more than one round of firing, you win. I usually count them as a one shot weapon unit. Them dying is a part of it, guardsmen die, its what they do.

DoW

Thank you. The restriction on chimeras, just to make sure everyone is ont he same page. Is no orders issued to units inside the transport including the same squad issuing them. You can issue out freely.

 UMGuy wrote:
Thank you. The restriction on chimeras, just to make sure everyone is ont he same page. Is no orders issued to units inside the transport including the same squad issuing them. You can issue out freely.

Just not to anyone else in a Chimera, of course.

Vehicle to vehicle comms would make far too much sense.

DoW

I've always found plasma to be extremely effective , I always take 2 plasma guns on all of my vet squads in chimeras , yes you could argue that they are unpredictable , in your case I think you were extremely unlucky . Personally I like being able to make terminators think twice about charging my lines in exchange for a little risk of 1 measly guardsmen dying . We are the guard , we have vast amounts of expendable manpower

 Kasrkin229 wrote:
I've always found plasma to be extremely effective , I always take 2 plasma guns on all of my vet squads in chimeras , yes you could argue that they are unpredictable , in your case I think you were extremely unlucky . Personally I like being able to make terminators think twice about charging my lines in exchange for a little risk of 1 measly guardsmen dying . We are the guard , we have vast amounts of expendable manpower

I would highly recommend taking all three plasmas. Just two makes it a much less scary unit, especially shooting from a chimera with 5 fire points. Mixing and matching is usually a bad choice too since the more you diversify, the less effective you are against each particular type of target (melta/vehicles+T4multiwound, plasma/TEQ+MEQ+MC).

I also feel flamers waste the Vet's BS4 but that's just me. If you want flamers, take a PCS with 4!

DoW

One thing mentioned in this thread that's interesting is the idea of a sarge with 2 pistols to get two shots. While I would probably not do this on a line sarge (losing him is far more detrimental than just a line grunt, and it costs 20 points for the pistols, and you can't fire them beyond 12"), but on a CCS equipped with plasma, I can definitely see some potential (they can now put out 8 plasma shots while still being able to squeeze in a medic).

 Omegus wrote:
One thing mentioned in this thread that's interesting is the idea of a sarge with 2 pistols to get two shots. While I would probably not do this on a line sarge (losing him is far more detrimental than just a line grunt, and it costs 20 points for the pistols, and you can't fire them beyond 12"), but on a CCS equipped with plasma, I can definitely see some potential (they can now put out 8 plasma shots while still being able to squeeze in a medic).

Or just take 4x plasma and 2x pistols, giving you 10x plasma shots.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Omegus wrote:
One thing mentioned in this thread that's interesting is the idea of a sarge with 2 pistols to get two shots. While I would probably not do this on a line sarge (losing him is far more detrimental than just a line grunt, and it costs 20 points for the pistols, and you can't fire them beyond 12"), but on a CCS equipped with plasma, I can definitely see some potential (they can now put out 8 plasma shots while still being able to squeeze in a medic).

Or just take 4x plasma and 2x pistols, giving you 10x plasma shots.

That unit is: 130pts base.
That is over 26 points per guardsman without a transport or any other upgrades.

 Tomb King wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Omegus wrote:
One thing mentioned in this thread that's interesting is the idea of a sarge with 2 pistols to get two shots. While I would probably not do this on a line sarge (losing him is far more detrimental than just a line grunt, and it costs 20 points for the pistols, and you can't fire them beyond 12"), but on a CCS equipped with plasma, I can definitely see some potential (they can now put out 8 plasma shots while still being able to squeeze in a medic).

Or just take 4x plasma and 2x pistols, giving you 10x plasma shots.

That unit is: 130pts base.
That is over 26 points per guardsman without a transport or any other upgrades.

So? It's cheaper than the 3x plasma/2x pistol/medpack unit the post I quoted was proposing, and it's a lot more effective.

Man, dont put a medic in your CCS. Put another plasmagun.

In 5th it was still a better idea to take another gun. Now with 5+, always take the other gun. 30points for 33% to your squishy guys not to fry themselves is dumb. They will fry themselves, or something will kill them. 15 points for two more supadeath shots before they inevitably bite it is not dumb.