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 ILegion wrote:
I run a Lion's Blade in my 1850 list and have 3 plasma guns for things like demons and what not. I still have a pretty grav heavy list 6 cannons and 5 grav guns (relentless) but I take 3 tac with melta and 3 with plasma. The plasma seems to come in handy to after their razorback gets popped so I can still move and shoot effectively but I still prefer grav for the most part.

Are these 10 man tac squads with special (Plasma or Melta) + matching Heavy (plasma cannon or MM)? Or 5 man squads with special + maybe combi?

I run Space Wolves, no allies so no access to Grav and the only time I use Plasma is a Las/Plas Razorback as a free upgrade in the Ironwolves formation.
To me a Plasma Gun/Pistol is usually weighed against that extra Storm Shield, Power Weapon, Jump Packs or three Flamers.

I used to swap between Plasma and Helfrost on Bjorn but the Helfrost Canon was just more flexible.

 kronk wrote:

 ILegion wrote:
I run a Lion's Blade in my 1850 list and have 3 plasma guns for things like demons and what not. I still have a pretty grav heavy list 6 cannons and 5 grav guns (relentless) but I take 3 tac with melta and 3 with plasma. The plasma seems to come in handy to after their razorback gets popped so I can still move and shoot effectively but I still prefer grav for the most part.

Are these 10 man tac squads with special (Plasma or Melta) + matching Heavy (plasma cannon or MM)? Or 5 man squads with special + maybe combi?

5 man tac squads. I usually don't take combi in them. I do run a 10 man tac squad in a drop pod with grav cannon/gun/combi and use them to hold objectives/mop up after other pods have come in. And I have another 10 man tac squad in a rhino with grav cannon/gun. Both combat squad for more obsec units.

Grav largely eclipses plasma for the codices that have accesses to it, especially with grav amps.

Lists that rely on assaulting on non-relentless units will go melta usually to crack open boxes and keep assaulting.

Each plasma shot has a 1/18 (5.55%) chance of vaping a 29ish point MEQ guy. It becomes 1/9 (11.11%) when rapid firing and is very noticeable. Guys die from plasma almost every game. If a plasma cannon rolls a 1, you don’t even get to fire the weapon. A vehicle only gets a 4+ save from it. An executioner tank is likely to kill itself.

Plasma becomes good on a relentless platform and/or has some way to reroll 1s. Preferred enemy in particular vastly improves plasma.

No way the Grav profile survives 8th edition. It will change.

I have one unit with Grav and will take no more than that. There is a very healthy number of Daemon players in my meta and to much Grav is suicide

 kronk wrote:
If plasma guns were 10 points instead of 15, I'd take more.

If plasma pistols were 5 points instead of 15, I'd take more.

The expense of plasma is the biggest drawback, IMHO. I'm not afraid of the Get's Hot.

Private Steve is, though.

fething Steve.

I really think they should go the way of Imperial Agents and make plasma guns 10 points, it would really even them out, make them more likable for all imperial armies, and make it an alternative to the melta gun (do you want guaranteed tank kill and MC killing or an all rounder AP 2 weapon that may kill you?)

DarthDiggler wrote:
No way the Grav profile survives 8th edition. It will change.

I have one unit with Grav and will take no more than that. There is a very healthy number of Daemon players in my meta and to much Grav is suicide

Can you elaborate?

 Marmatag wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:
No way the Grav profile survives 8th edition. It will change.

I have one unit with Grav and will take no more than that. There is a very healthy number of Daemon players in my meta and to much Grav is suicide

Can you elaborate?

Daemon's typically lack an armour save, so Grav will wound them on 6's.

Plasma has the advantage of still being great against Daemon princes.

To answer OP, it's because Grav usually outperforms Plasma in most cases. Grav Pistol is better than Plasma variant, and Grav Cannon is waaay better than Plasma Cannon. Plasma Gun is better than Grav Gun, but then the Grav Gun (and Cannon by extension) are put on Relentless platforms which mitigate the Salvo weakness.

 Frozocrone wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:
No way the Grav profile survives 8th edition. It will change.

I have one unit with Grav and will take no more than that. There is a very healthy number of Daemon players in my meta and to much Grav is suicide

Can you elaborate?

Daemon's typically lack an armour save, so Grav will wound them on 6's.

Plasma has the advantage of still being great against Daemon princes.

To answer OP, it's because Grav usually outperforms Plasma in most cases. Grav Pistol is better than Plasma variant, and Grav Cannon is waaay better than Plasma Cannon. Plasma Gun is better than Grav Gun, but then the Grav Gun (and Cannon by extension) are put on Relentless platforms which mitigate the Salvo weakness.

Ah. Ok. That makes sense.

In an environment where I face (will face): BA, Dark Eldar, Eldar, CSM, Necrons, and Orks, I already run a balance between grav and plasma. I have grav + amp is where it's at; the rerolls means you have at least an ok chance to wound even on 6.

as everyone has said, grav. The silliness that is grav is superior to all other weapons in all situation. If any unit can take grav, there's no reason to take anything else, so plasma is for those armies that don't have grav.

Cassor the Damned wrote:
Don't know if it's just my local meta, but people tend to avoid plasma like the plague. It's great for killing priority targets, monstrous creatures and light vehicle hunting. I prefer it over melta because it has the extra shot, and I'd only ever put melta in a unit that is dedicated to hunting vehicles. Plasma is great in a tac squad, but hardly anyone uses it, why? As far as I can tell, the chances of it burning the fingers off of a marine are quite slim.

Anything grav doesn't kill better than plasma, melta does.

I run space wolves and the only special weapons available for grey hunters and blood claws are plasma guns, melta guns and flamers. As blood claws are only bs3 i'd never equip them with anyting different than flamers, and i prefer melta guns over plasma for the grey hunters as melta guns are cheaper and kill vehicles very well, not to mention that melta guns never kill their bearer if he rolls badly. They also have the same chances to wound models with high toughness or models with T4 and multiple wounds. Plasma guns are better only if you shoot at models with a single wound, T4 and a good armour save, as you have the chance to get more casualties.

Its because plasma is expensive, can kill your own soldiers when they are using it and grav makes them obsolete, as they fulfil the same role as plasma (anti heavy infantry), except it doesn't kill your soldiers, is good against vehicles and infantry, and does it way more efficiently.

So yeah, grav is op, nerf pls. What a stupid mechanic, it should have just stopped the target from moving or reduced their move distance if it inflicted an unsaved wound, instead of effortlessy killing infantry and vehicles.

Gets hot needs a rewrite, imo. Maybe instead of outright mudering your soldier, it should just stop the weapon from firing for a turn, due to overheating.