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 Ghazkuul wrote:
Actually i was refering to the fact that firing pistols in CC would make it worse for CC units. My CC units don't have access to plasma pistols and I wouldn't want them to use them anyway since they are BS 2. This would break the game even more in favor of higher BS models.

Wait, are you saying that models with higher BS are better at shooting than models with lower BS? No Way!

What about allowing Pistols a single attack at S: Weapon, AP: -, Unwieldy?

Remember the other pistols, though. Building this around plasma pistols will make bolt pistols and laspistols entirely pointless. If they don't offer an extra attack but have some "make one attack with this weapon" or so, then there's no point at all. Such pistols are usually carried by something that has equal Strength to the pistol, so the (extremely small) AP gain would not be worth it.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Remember the other pistols, though. Building this around plasma pistols will make bolt pistols and laspistols entirely pointless. If they don't offer an extra attack but have some "make one attack with this weapon" or so, then there's no point at all. Such pistols are usually carried by something that has equal Strength to the pistol, so the (extremely small) AP gain would not be worth it.

No no, you must have misinterpreted what I said. I suggest you can still just count the pistol as a CC weapon, get the +1 attack, use all your melee attacks as normal. You would just have the opton of firing your pistol as an alternative to making your regular melee attacks.

Either do 2+ attacks using your normal melee stats, or get 1 attack using pistol profile. Doesn't hurt models that are carrying crappy pistols, benefits models carrying expensive ones. Nothing is made pointless, you can just get further benefit from something that costs 15 points.

Well, for me, the hitting of the enemy with any pistol (rather than shooting them) is the problem, not the cost of plasma pistols. I'd rather replace the extra attack with a pistol shot, but this does raise an issue with special pistols such as the plasma.

Inferno pistols are quite rare. Perhaps the fix would be to allow what I have just said, but increase Gets Hot in melee to include a 2? An easier comparison than the power fist is the power axe; 15pts (on models that don't have a power weapon as standard), usually Strength 5, AP2, Unwieldy. I don't think normal Gets Hot (and being limited to one use per phase) is sufficient penalty for being at-initiative, Strength 7, and able to be fired at 12''.

I hate to say it, but without a specific restriction to plasma pistols, the only alternative is to increase them in points. I really don't want that, so we'll have to think of something.

Inferno Pistols have a 6" range and cost 15 points. Plasma Pistols are Gets Hot, and cost 15 points.

If my choice is between a Plasma/Inferno Pistol, and a Plasma/Meltagun, then I'm pretty much going to go with the latter every time. A Plasma gun offers superior RoF and range, while costing the same amount, while a Meltagun not only offers superior range (which is quite important for the Melta rule), but is also cheaper!

It's also worth noting that most armies- Imperial or otherwise (like DE) are probably overpaying on power weapons.

Especially the poor DE, who can only get swords, not even something that'd be particularly useful like an axe or maul.

It's be cool but need some point adjustments......

Seraphim would certainly say a huge thank you and so would every Battle Sister who suddenly gets to be S4 in close combat

Also need to define that Furious Charge does not help?

The units engaged in close combat aren't necessarily just hitting the enemy with their pistol though. Close combat is an abstraction that includes hand-to-hand, as well as close range shooting. WS is an amalgamation that covers both.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Well, for me, the hitting of the enemy with any pistol (rather than shooting them) is the problem, not the cost of plasma pistols. I'd rather replace the extra attack with a pistol shot, but this does raise an issue with special pistols such as the plasma.

Inferno pistols are quite rare. Perhaps the fix would be to allow what I have just said, but increase Gets Hot in melee to include a 2? An easier comparison than the power fist is the power axe; 15pts (on models that don't have a power weapon as standard), usually Strength 5, AP2, Unwieldy. I don't think normal Gets Hot (and being limited to one use per phase) is sufficient penalty for being at-initiative, Strength 7, and able to be fired at 12''.

I hate to say it, but without a specific restriction to plasma pistols, the only alternative is to increase them in points. I really don't want that, so we'll have to think of something.

Which is why I feel my suggestion (S: Weapon, AP: -, Unwieldy) works out well enough. As such, the comparison between Power Axe and Plasma Pistol would be S: 5, AP: 2, Unwieldy versus S: 7, AP: -, Unwieldy (+ the normal utility of the Plasma Pistol's regular shots).

mr. peasant wrote:
Which is why I feel my suggestion (S: Weapon, AP: -, Unwieldy) works out well enough. As such, the comparison between Power Axe and Plasma Pistol would be S: 5, AP: 2, Unwieldy versus S: 7, AP: -, Unwieldy (+ the normal utility of the Plasma Pistol's regular shots).

When would that ever actually be good? The benefit of the plasma pistol is the AP, not the strength, as against anything that strength matters you have krak grenades. Throw in that plasma suddenly losing its AP is honestly a bit silly.

The advantage of the axe over the pistol is that a model carrying a power axe is going to have at least 2 attacks, where if we incorporated a pistol shot it'd be a single shot... thus balance. It's similar to having the option to make a single smash attack.

Whiskey144 wrote:
Inferno Pistols have a 6" range and cost 15 points. Plasma Pistols are Gets Hot, and cost 15 points.

If my choice is between a Plasma/Inferno Pistol, and a Plasma/Meltagun, then I'm pretty much going to go with the latter every time. A Plasma gun offers superior RoF and range, while costing the same amount, while a Meltagun not only offers superior range (which is quite important for the Melta rule), but is also cheaper!

It's also worth noting that most armies- Imperial or otherwise (like DE) are probably overpaying on power weapons.

Especially the poor DE, who can only get swords, not even something that'd be particularly useful like an axe or maul.

Well the point of taking a pistol over a ranged weapon is that you want to get into CC. If you take a Plasma rifle instead of Pistol you CAN'T fire the weapon before assaulting since its Rapid fire. So your point is kinda out of sync with the game mechanics. Furthermore you said it wouldn't break the game, but as I pointed out everyone time you talk about the rule your referring to imperials and DE/Eldar/Chaos. Orks/Nids/Tau/demons 0 bonus for these races. So what your looking at is a bonus that doesn't benefit the three biggest CC armies in the game and for one of the biggest shooty armies. What you do is buff the lists that aren't great at CC but aren't terrible at it. Imperials/Chaos/Eldar/DE.

Broken mechanic, as I have shown in the reason in previous posts and this one. You can say its a "Cop out" if you would like but then you are basically denying the fact that it would break the assault mechanic even more, and ruin the fun for assault armies.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Well the point of taking a pistol over a ranged weapon is that you want to get into CC. If you take a Plasma rifle instead of Pistol you CAN'T fire the weapon before assaulting since its Rapid fire.

You might have had a point, were it not the case that there is not any unit I can think of off hand that has access to both the plasma gun and the plasma pistol and would want to get into combat. In other words, the units that can get both are almost invariably shooting centric, and so do not want to get into assault. What makes it even worse is that most Marine/Sisters characters can instead pay 66% the price of a plasma pistol to get a combi-weapon.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
So your point is kinda out of sync with the game mechanics.

Nooo, my point is that any unit which can take both a plasma gun and plasma pistol has no need for the pistol in the first place, as they don't want to be in combat, and can get access to a noticeably cheaper combi-weapon to pretty much do the same job.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Furthermore you said it wouldn't break the game, but as I pointed out everyone time you talk about the rule your referring to imperials and DE/Eldar/Chaos. Orks/Nids/Tau/demons 0 bonus for these races. So what your looking at is a bonus that doesn't benefit the three biggest CC armies in the game and for one of the biggest shooty armies. What you do is buff the lists that aren't great at CC but aren't terrible at it. Imperials/Chaos/Eldar/DE.

Okay, let me break this down for you since you don't seem to get it:

Tau have almost no units that actually want to be in combat. Not only that, but the only Tau unit to have a pistol weapon (IIRC) is the Sniper Drone target designator-dude. Given that Tau are WS/I 2, it's pretty obvious that it doesn't matter if he can make a single S5/AP5 attack in combat, he's screwed and this would never change that.

Nids generally have the volume or quality of attacks to not actually care; I assume that Orks would as well. Daemons all have built-in Invulnerable saves, though I also admit to being very unfamiliar with the Daemons book.

As far as the Imperial, Chaos, and Eldar/DE books... DE really need all the help they can get, Eldar admittedly need no buffs- but when was the last time you saw an Eldar list bring anything for the sole purpose of using it to assault things? Chaos Marines are actually one of the worst armies in the game right now, particularly considering that basic CSMs are overpriced and almost invariably overshadowed by Cult units (IE, Zerks/Plagues). IG has what, one useful assault unit, and everything else pretty much boils down to "tarpit/bubblewrap". The particularly punchy unit in the Sisters list is, IIRC, limited to Repentia... who don't actually have guns (and have S6 unwieldy anyways), while Marines either have assault units that don't really care about their pistols (ASM, VV, Honor Guard), or don't actually carry pistols (Hammer/Clawnators, AssCents).

Not only that, but units which are combat-oriented, and can all take pistol upgrades are very rare- just in the vanilla Marine book, it's actually limited entirely to VVs. ASM can take Plasma Pistols as a special weapon... but it's also very overpriced and competes with the generally more useful flamer. Honor Guard can't take any pistol upgrades, while Terminators and Centurions have no access to pistols whatsoever.

Quite frankly, at this point I think your problem has more to do with Orks/Nids/Daemons simply not getting pistols (or worthwhile ones, at least) in the first place. Not only that, but everyone seems to keep saying that things like "trade some/all attacks for a single pistol shot" and "pistol shot must use the Weapon Skill trait to determine hits". Which, incidentally, means that said pistol is going to hit less often when in the hands of models with better BS, as many such models are either equal WS/BS- but simultaneously are fighting WS4 opponents (WS4 is, AFAIK, the 'benchmark' of minimum acceptable WS values for useful assault units)- or they actually have inferior WS.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Broken mechanic, as I have shown in the reason in previous posts and this one.

You have shown no actual evidence that it's broken beyond blithering on about how it 'buffs' only "Imperial/CSM/Eldar/DE", and that it must be broken because GW didn't implement it.

Riptides say hello, by the way.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
You can say its a "Cop out" if you would like but then you are basically denying the fact that it would break the assault mechanic even more, and ruin the fun for assault armies.

Hardly. All you have done is complain that it's broken, as per your arguments that I mentioned above. You have provided no concrete evidence that it is actually broken to allow a model to exchange some/all of their CC attacks in favor of making a single attack using the S/AP values of an equipped sidearm.

In fact, here's a very nicely balanced (IMO) variation on what's been proposed in this thread:

A Model may choose to forgo all of its normal attacks, in favor of firing an equipped pistol in combat. Models that choose to do so substitute their Strength values for the Strength of the pistol, and use the pistol's AP value as well. However, due to the difficulty of lining up a clean shot in the hectic environment of close combat, a model must use its WS trait to make the To-Hit roll, as if it were making a normal combat attack; IE a model is WS and BS 4, and is in combat with another model of the same WS; it would hit on a 4+, rather than the 3+ that using the BS trait would permit when shooting normally. Moreover, any model which does so must make the attack as if it was using a combat weapon with the Unwieldy trait, at Initiative step 1.

That acceptable to you, Ghaz? Or is it "too broken" for a model to be able to use its pistol in CC as an Unwieldy weapon that only allows for one attack.

Another thing is that many s3 models have s4 pistols. As mentioned above, SOB will all suddenly become s4 in mellee. And orks would have s4 attack in the 2-d round of combat or if getting charged.

 koooaei wrote:
Another thing is that many s3 models have s4 pistols. As mentioned above, SOB will all suddenly become s4 in mellee. And orks would have s4 attack in the 2-d round of combat or if getting charged.

Did you not read the bit about it being a single attack? No one is proposing that we replace all the models attacks with the pistol profile (Though if we're being fluffy at least Seraphim should be able to do this).

I think a single shot replacing one attack using WS to hit is more than fine. For all the high S low AP pistols you're paying power weapon prices for an upgrade to one attack. Think of it being like the new Harlequin Kiss. For the bolt pistols it's a minor S/AP buff depending on the model using it.

As for Orks not benefitting...well they do, slightly, as all your slugga boyz now get one S4 attack with an AP value with their much better WS when they don't charge. Plus with this change, there might be more reason to put more pistols in the game in the future for more races.

 Tarrasq wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Another thing is that many s3 models have s4 pistols. As mentioned above, SOB will all suddenly become s4 in mellee. And orks would have s4 attack in the 2-d round of combat or if getting charged.

Did you not read the bit about it being a single attack? No one is proposing that we replace all the models attacks with the pistol profile (Though if we're being fluffy at least Seraphim should be able to do this).

Maybe you should read my post more carefully. Nowhere have i stated such stuff.

 koooaei wrote:

As for Orks not benefitting...well they do, slightly, as all your slugga boyz now get one S4 attack with an AP value with their much better WS when they don't charge. Plus with this change, there might be more reason to put more pistols in the game in the future for more races.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

1 S4 AP6 shot per boy using WS4 OR 3 attacks per boy using WS4 S3 AP-

10 boyz shooting 10 pistols hitting on 3s = 7-8 hits and on a T4 model thats 3-4 wounds.
10 Boyz using CC attacks is 30 Attacks hitting on 3s = 20 hits S3 so wounding T4 models on a 5 = 6-7 wounds.

Why would an ork player ever choose to do with except against T7+ things? And here I would just use my Nob PK to eat it.

This proposal would benefit armies with access to powerful pistols that aren't great in close combat. Yes I am aware that not many armies can take pistols across the board, however lets take the most popular army. Space marines, instead of giving your sergeant a Power fist and a veteran upgrade you can just give him a S7 AP2 plasma pistol and he can deal with most opponents. Its not the assault elements I am worried about its the random characters rolling around the board who I want to kill to reduce leadership who will be able to ignore my armor saves and be able to kill characters in challenge with a single shot.


I have shown you how this would break CC even more and you choose to ignore them.

You compare Plasma Rifles to Pistols and how a rifle is better, then I point out the entire point behind equipping a pistol and you say that no unit would use it because they don't want to be in the assault anyway. Sorry for not being clear enough, my point was that the reason for the price is because it allows units to shoot and assault and its a powerful pistol so it has to cost 10-15 points. Yeah you could take a flamer instead but I am not comparing a pistol to a flamer. (flame pistols aside). This as I have shown would benefit only 1/2 the armies in the game and if you look at the 2014 Las Vegas open winners list you will see that the list of winners is entirely the ones who would benefit from this rule change. Clearly these armies do not need anymore buffs.

I'd love it if I could use my inferno pistols in CC. It would make my Canoness downright vicious, not to mention what it would mean for Seraphim squads.

Furyou what happens if you shoot your inferno pistol in the shooting phase and dont kill a vehicle and you charge in. Do you get another chance with it? and since your definitely within 3 inches do you get to use the Melta special rule?

Swapping all attacks for 1 pistol shot is a silly idea.

Swapping 1 attack for a pistol shot makes more sense.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Swapping all attacks for 1 pistol shot is a silly idea.

Swapping 1 attack for a pistol shot makes more sense.

And would not be allowed for the reasons I stated before.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

This proposal would benefit armies with access to powerful pistols that aren't great in close combat. Yes I am aware that not many armies can take pistols across the board, however lets take the most popular army. Space marines, instead of giving your sergeant a Power fist and a veteran upgrade you can just give him a S7 AP2 plasma pistol and he can deal with most opponents. Its not the assault elements I am worried about its the random characters rolling around the board who I want to kill to reduce leadership who will be able to ignore my armor saves and be able to kill characters in challenge with a single shot.

Let's look then at a pistol vs a power axe or fist. Right now, I have two models with plasma pistols. A veteran sergeant, and a company master. I'll assume no charge.

The sergeant gets two base attacks, and has two CC weapons. If I give him an axe, he gets 3 attacks, S5 AP2. Against T3, it's marginally better than a pistol shot, against T4 it's still better, even better on the charge.

My company master has a fist. 3 attacks with it. That's 3 ID attacks, vs 1 S7 pistol shot. If I give him an axe instead, that's 4 attacks, vs 1 with a pistol.

A pistol has about a 41% chance of a wound, an axe in the hands of a sergeant will get 1 wound on average against T4. A company master with an axe will on average get 1 and 3/4 wounds.

Explain to me when a pistol is superior to a power weapon? Anything that can take a pistol is better off with a power weapon, unless they're facing MCs.

 kingbobbito wrote:

 Ghazkuul wrote:

This proposal would benefit armies with access to powerful pistols that aren't great in close combat. Yes I am aware that not many armies can take pistols across the board, however lets take the most popular army. Space marines, instead of giving your sergeant a Power fist and a veteran upgrade you can just give him a S7 AP2 plasma pistol and he can deal with most opponents. Its not the assault elements I am worried about its the random characters rolling around the board who I want to kill to reduce leadership who will be able to ignore my armor saves and be able to kill characters in challenge with a single shot.

Let's look then at a pistol vs a power axe or fist. Right now, I have two models with plasma pistols. A veteran sergeant, and a company master. I'll assume no charge.

The sergeant gets two base attacks, and has two CC weapons. If I give him an axe, he gets 3 attacks, S5 AP2. Against T3, it's marginally better than a pistol shot, against T4 it's still better, even better on the charge.

My company master has a fist. 3 attacks with it. That's 3 ID attacks, vs 1 S7 pistol shot. If I give him an axe instead, that's 4 attacks, vs 1 with a pistol.

A pistol has about a 41% chance of a wound, an axe in the hands of a sergeant will get 1 wound on average against T4. A company master with an axe will on average get 1 and 3/4 wounds.

Explain to me when a pistol is superior to a power weapon? Anything that can take a pistol is better off with a power weapon, unless they're facing MCs.

Well the main difference is the cost - at the moment a Battle Sister squad is all S3 AP - with the upgrade they are all now S4 AP5 which is much better as they tend to strike 2nd anyway at I3.

The Melta range question is interesting and also means you would not bother with Melta bombs?

IMO, the rule should be like the new Harlequin Kiss, with 1 of your attacks is replaced with a different profile.
However, if I were to make a similar rule to pistols, I would limit it to 1 attack with the profile, unless it replaces your only attack. For example:

SM have 1A. He gets charged. He has a pistol, which allows him to substitute 1 of his attacks with the Bolt Pistol (or plasma pistol, if he has one) profile. However, he's not allowed to do so, because he can't substitute his only available attack with the pistol profile. If he was charging, on the other hand, he would have 2 attacks available and thus he would be able to substitute 1 of his available attacks with the Bolt Pistol profile.

Furthermore, any weapons with blast/template in their profile can't be used to subsitute an attack in CC, due to the dangers of such weaponry being used in such a close proximity.

Gunslinger: Same rules as in BRB but with the added rules that they can substitute all their attacks with their equipped pistols (although they can only chose the profile of 1 pistol, in case of the model being equipped with 2 different pistols)

That way would mostly buff tactical marines IF they were charging and it wouldn't ruin it for charging GEQ armies, who would suddenly face AP5 CC attacks from units that didn't have it before. Furthermore, it would buff weaker assault units, like ASM and (Wyches with CC splinter weapons!) and if you give your tac marine sergeant a plasma pistol, you wouldn't be able to pick a combi-weapon or bolter, if you just want to have a free S7 AP2 attack, unless you either pay the cost for a veteran marine or sacrifice your bolter/combi-weapon for a chainsword, which in turn sacrifices ranged offense.

IMO, the rule should be like the new Harlequin Kiss, with 1 of your attacks is replaced with a different profile.
However, if I were to make a similar rule to pistols, I would limit it to 1 attack with the profile, unless it replaces your only attack

Like it. Was thinking the same thing.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Filch wrote:
If pistols ignore having to snap shot or get full bs in snap shot then we will see so many planes get shot of the sky by a 12" pistol...

The aforementioned "pistols fire at full BS in overwatch" does not ignore the general penalties of snapfire. It just means that when you are charged, you can use full BS for overwatch fire against the charging unit.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Again, very few races get high strength pistols and even fewer have Low AP pistols, it would be almost a strictly Imperium buff.

Eldar/DE/Harlies all get S7+/AP2- pistols. Not only that, but it's always the case that you have to pay out the nose to get one of these kinds of pistols, and they often come with some other drawback- Plasma Pistols have Gets Hot, Inferno/Fusion/Blast pistols are all 6", Grav Pistols can't kill low-save infantry models.

Be able to exchange some of a model's attacks for ONE pistol shot, which must use the Weapon Skill attribute to hit, is not in the slightest way broken.

Its actualy very broken which is why they don't allow you to do it. this would favor shooty armies and make it even that much harder for assault armies (AKA Nids and Orks) to win. If you don't like the plasma pistol because you pay so much for it then just take a bolt pistol and call it a day.

We are talking about 1 shot here man. It would actually be to your benefit, slugga boys would get a str4 attack that hits on 3's with their pistol attack - better than their base str. it would only help after the first round though cause you get furious charge prolly.

It would not help as I showed you. 1 shot at S4 vs 3 attacks at S3. better chance to wound with the 3 attacks.

The reason it would be broken as i stated and everyone seems to have forgotten about is you can replace your sergeants Powerfists/power axes which cost 20+ pts i think (I dont have my codex nearby) and you wouldn't have to upgrade them to veteran status to make the Fist/axe worth a darn. You save points and you take care of the point of having a High strength low AP weapon. THAT is why it would be broken.

as I said, Orks, Nids, Tau, demons would have 0 Benefit from this rule change and as I showed you, those are the armies who aren't winning tournaments so why would you buff everyone else and nerf them that much more?

 Ghazkuul wrote:
It would not help as I showed you. 1 shot at S4 vs 3 attacks at S3. better chance to wound with the 3 attacks.

The reason it would be broken as i stated and everyone seems to have forgotten about is you can replace your sergeants Powerfists/power axes which cost 20+ pts i think (I dont have my codex nearby) and you wouldn't have to upgrade them to veteran status to make the Fist/axe worth a darn. You save points and you take care of the point of having a High strength low AP weapon. THAT is why it would be broken.

as I said, Orks, Nids, Tau, demons would have 0 Benefit from this rule change and as I showed you, those are the armies who aren't winning tournaments so why would you buff everyone else and nerf them that much more?

Tyranids won LVO. Demons/inq aswell as CSM/Demons made it to top 8.
Furthermore, the point isn't to buff specific armies, but to buff (mainly) specific weak CC units in an edition that favours shooting. Wyches, ASM and Raptors, piss poor units, would get a well needed buff and pistol weapons, that are laughably (and undeniably) overpriced, would finally have a purpose aswell as a justified reason for them to be included.
Furthermore, I can't admit that I can even follow your logic about plasma pistols being better than power weapons. 15 points for 1 attack at S7 AP2, is not superior to 3 attacks at S5 AP2, except against MC's and even then, it's still 15 points. The same price you pay for power weapons, I can't see how it's somehow "supperior" or "free". Especially not when it's limited to 1 attack that, generally, only hits 50% of the time in CC.

Ghazkuul wrote:Furyou what happens if you shoot your inferno pistol in the shooting phase and dont kill a vehicle and you charge in. Do you get another chance with it? and since your definitely within 3 inches do you get to use the Melta special rule?

What, normally? No, you fire your pistols then you charge and use your grenades. Of course, since Seraphim tend to carry four inferno pistols if they have any at all, it's not exactly a situation that comes up often.

Ghazkuul wrote:It would not help as I showed you. 1 shot at S4 vs 3 attacks at S3. better chance to wound with the 3 attacks.

The reason it would be broken as i stated and everyone seems to have forgotten about is you can replace your sergeants Powerfists/power axes which cost 20+ pts i think (I dont have my codex nearby) and you wouldn't have to upgrade them to veteran status to make the Fist/axe worth a darn. You save points and you take care of the point of having a High strength low AP weapon. THAT is why it would be broken.

as I said, Orks, Nids, Tau, demons would have 0 Benefit from this rule change and as I showed you, those are the armies who aren't winning tournaments so why would you buff everyone else and nerf them that much more?

Power Weapons are 15, Power Fists are 20 I think. Eviscerators are overpriced at 30.

If they dropped power weapons to 10 points (which probably sounds insane to MEq players), then the pistols at 15 would be fine.

its because you get to shoot the pistol in the shooting phase and then again in CC, your doubling its shot out put per turn.

yes, you would be with the proposed rules. To be honest, inferno pistol seraphim are over-priced at the moment for what they do - they pay 36 points for a T3 3+/6++ model with two inferno pistols. In comparison, they compete with Dominions, which pay 24 points for a T3 3+/6++ model with an Ignores Cover meltagun.

Damage output is the same across the squad - dominions can have four models with special weapons, Seraphim can only have two - except the Dominions ignore cover and don't lose effectiveness as quickly from being wounded. Dominion extra range is offset by Seraphim mobility though.